Review: "Copper River," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor, the sheriff of Minnesota’s (fictional) Tamarack County, is a take-charge kind of guy who normally finds himself in firm control of whatever situation he encounters.

But not this time out.

In Copper River, the sixth entry in William Kent Krueger’s acclaimed mystery series,  Cork  is shot in the leg by a hit man whose employer  believes — wrongly — that Cork murdered one of his sons. Fearing for his safety and that of his family, Cork hides out at his cousin Jewell DuBois’ aging resort on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

But his recovery is far from restful. When Jewell’s teenage son Ren (short for Renoir) and Ren's friend Charlene (aka, Charlie) go searching for a body their pal Stash claims to have seen in the Copper River, a boat docks nearby. Its occupants try to capture the two teenagers, who narrowly escape.

Crises mount. Charlie’s father, a notorious drunk, is brutally murdered in the home he shared with his daughter, possibly by the unidentified men from the boat. Did they kill him because he refused to tell them where they could find Charlie?

Later still, the corpse of a teenage girl washes ashore on a lake that is fed by the Copper River. Meanwhile, Stash is badly injured in a hit-and-run. Ren believes the driver deliberately plowed into Stash in a case of mistaken identity, thinking Stash was Ren.

Cork suspects that the boaters murdered the girl whose body Ren and Charlie were searching for, and the men are now determined to silence the two inquisitive teenagers. That may be why they demanded that Charlie’s father reveal her whereabouts, and why one of them ran down Stash.

All of which points to fowl play rather than accidental death. Cork and his friend Dina, a worldly-wise private investigator, swing into action, despite Cork’s injury.

Krueger tosses a lot of irons into the fire, making for an engrossing page-turner.

Cork’s would-be killer (or killers?) continues to pursue his prey in hopes of collecting a $500,000 bounty. Thanks largely to Cork’s somewhat reckless exertions since the shooting, his wound keeps reopening, soaking his leg in blood from time to time. And if all that isn’t enough, intriguing tracks — both human and cougar — turn up outside Jewell’s collection of cabins.

Krueger’s canvas is expansive, with a varied cast of characters. Cork’s family is off-stage back in Minnesota, but Dina, who figured prominently in the previous novel, plays a central role in Copper River as well. The embittered Jewell and the teens Ren and Charlie are well fleshed out.

The investigation of the deaths plays out against a backdrop of scenic natural settings, a credible examination of the turmoils of teen life, and an exploration of the grief and pain that plague Jewell following the death of her husband. There also are periodic references to Indigenous people, with Ojibwe vocabulary and beliefs cropping up from time to time.

Not surprisingly, given Krueger’s success and popularity, Copper River’s plot never lags. The author moves the story along at a brisk pace. The novel is more grim than earlier entries in the series, but it is compelling and memorable.

 

Copper River provides twists and turns aplenty. (That cougar, wounded and famished, shows up again at a critical juncture.) Readers probably will be glued to the page straight through to the harrowing but satisfying conclusion of Copper River.