Review: "Blood Hollow," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

In this fourth installment in William Kent Krueger’s long-running mystery series (20 novels since 1998), Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota, joins forces with his wife Jo, an attorney, in championing a young Indigenous man accused of murdering a high school student.

The O’Connors are convinced that Solemn Winter Moon, the supposed killer of Charlotte Kane, is innocent. But the arrogant new sheriff, Arne Soderberg, who sees his job as nothing more than a stepping stone to the state Legislature, believes otherwise.

Although the young Ojibwe maintains his innocence, the circumstantial evidence against him is damning.

Charlotte and Solemn had been dating until she broke it off. The duo later argued at a New Year’s Eve party, shortly before Charlotte’s death. A moody charmer with a troubled past, Solemn had motive and opportunity. His wrench was the murder weapon. And he has no alibi. He even disappeared (for a time) after his former girlfriend’s murder.

Krueger’s novels are atmospheric, with compelling, three-dimensional characters who live (and sometimes die) in the rural borderlands of northern Minnesota. Blood Hollow is no exception. Certain motifs recur in the series, but they are welcome touchstones, not hackneyed staples.

For example, Cork is fiercely devoted to his family (Jo, two daughters, a young son and Jo’s live-in sister). He loves the deep woods of rural Minnesota, musing that they hold a spirit “so huge it humbled the human heart.” And he has strong ties to the local Ojibwe (aka, the Chippewa), thanks to the fact that Cork is one quarter Ojibwe himself, through one of his grandmothers.

Indigenous characters play recurring roles in Blood Hollow. In addition to Solemn Winter Moon they include Henry Meloux, a wise elder who provides guidance to Cork. Krueger, who periodically drops Ojibwe words and concepts into his novels, has written previously that he tries to capture the “courage and integrity” of the Anishinaabeg, an umbrella group of various Indigenous peoples, including the Ojibwe.

Initially, the investigation seems straightforward enough, at least to the sheriff’s department, which immediately settled on Solemn as the killer. But Krueger keeps readers guessing by introducing other possible suspects. The plot eventually becomes cloaked in a web of deception, manipulation and ambiguity.

Was Charlotte really Charlotte? Is Fletcher Kane, a sullen but gifted doctor, actually her father? Is he, as he claims, a widower and an Aurora native who left his hometown as a child, only to move back as an adult? Why does Fletcher's sister, who lives with him in Aurora, disappear after Charlotte’s murder? Is anything in this case what it appears to be?

Along the way, subplots abound.

One character claims to have had a face-to-face conversation with Jesus while out in the woods. Desperate people from far and wide convince themselves that the angel atop a cemetery monument bleeds, and that Solemn has miraculous healing powers. A conflicted Catholic priest turns up at Cork’s house, falling down drunk. The collapse of a prominent couple’s loveless marriage weakens the legal case against Solemn. And a bizarre religious practice emerges as an element in the plot.

Blood Hollow builds to a shocking but satisfying climax that should leave readers eager for a return visit to Aurora, Minnesota. Once they have caught their breath, that is.