As the eighth novel in William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series opens, Cork, the former sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnestota, is leading a quiet life in rural Aurora, the county seat and his home town. He runs a seasonal, lakeside burger joint and tackles occasional low-key jobs as a private investigator.
But that changes when someone, possibly a disgruntled Ojibwe man from a local reservation, starts shooting at O’Connor and his 10-year-old son.
Neither is harmed in the attack, which appears to be more of a warning than anything else. But the shooting prompts Cork to inject himself into a double murder case that is under investigation by the sheriff’s office and a state agent. Cork makes it his mission to find a possible suspect who has disappeared.
The case centers on the deaths of Alexander and Rayette Kingbird, an indigenous couple gunned down outside their home while their infant daughter slept inside. Alexander Kingbird was the leader of a local indigenous group calling itself the Red Boyz, whose members include a young man named Lonnie Thunder.
Thunder may have killed the Kingbirds to prevent Alexander, a foe of local drug dealing, from turning him in to the sheriff for supplying drugs to Kristi Reinhardt, a young woman who fell or jumped to her death while under the influence of Thunder’s wares.
There’s more than one suspect in the case, however. And, eventually, more than two murders to investigate.
Kristi’s father, Buck Reinhardt, an obnoxious local businessman, believes Alexander Kingbird was indirectly responsible for his daughter’s death, giving Reinhardt a possible motive for killing Kingbird and his wife.
Moreover, a California-based drug gang has upset many Ojibwe by using a warehouse on the reservation near Aurora to distribute drugs in the Midwest. Did tensions between the gang and angry tribal members prompt the West-Coast drug lords to silence the Kingbirds?
When Buck Reinhardt is gunned down by an unknown assailant, new questions arise. Alexander Kingbird’s father confesses to Buck's murder, but did he do it? His wife suspects he’s taking the blame to protect someone else. And then there’s Alexander’s brother, Ulysses, who has made off with a rifle from his father’s workshop, making him a possible suspect in Buck’s death as well.
As the body count grows, leaders of the local Ojibwe band decide to shut down the drug warehouse on the reservation, despite the ruthlessness of the California dealers who visit the reservation periodically and are sure to resent this turn of events.
Red Knife is the eighth of 21 novels in Kruger’s O’Connor series. Those eight books, at least, blend Cork’s solid investigative work with his closest personal relationships.
Cork’s longtime friendship with Henry Meloux, a wise and aged Ojibwe, is always on display, to one degree or another. Even more importantly, Cork’s devotion to his family —wife Jo and their three children — is a central element in the novels.
The oldest of Cork’s two daughters doesn’t figure in Red Knife because she’s away at college, but his younger daughter, Annie, a high-school senior, and still younger son, Stevie, make multiple appearances. No spoilers here, but it’s worth noting that Red Knife builds to a shattering climax that takes a toll on Cork’s clan, and in particular on one member of his family.
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