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.

Review: "Mercy Falls," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

William Kent Krueger has created a winning formula with his mystery series starring Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor, the on-again off-again sheriff of rural (and fictional) Tamarack County in northern Minnesota. There are over 20 novels in the series — or will be with the publication of the 21st book this September.

A former Chicago cop who returned to his Minnesota roots by settling in his hometown of Aurora, Cork wears a sheriff’s badge once again in the fifth novel, following a forced exile that, for a time, left him running a lakeside burger joint near his home.

In Mercy Falls, the sheriff and a female deputy head out to investigate a possible domestic dispute. When they arrive at the home of Lucy Tibodeau, who supposedly made the call, Deputy Marsha Dross is shot and seriously wounded as she steps out from behind the wheel. The cabin, meanwhile, is empty.

The shot was fired from some distance, and Cork is convinced he was the intended target; Cork reasons that the shooter probably assumed the sheriff would be driving the cruiser. Lucy, upon returning home, denies having placed the call to the sheriff’s office. Someone impersonated her on the phone to lure Cork to the cabin.

Krueger has created a complex and believable world in the O’Connor novels, both in terms of the people who populate Tamarack County and the setting. In fact, the region itself is a central character. Cork’s turf is located near an actual wilderness area known as the Boundary Waters, a massive expanse west of Lake Superior that covers portions of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario.

Although Tamarack County is rural, it is not exclusively white. Indigenous Anishinaabe people live there too, notably Ojibwe (aka, Chippewa) who have a reservation and play a prominent role, at least in the early novels. The shooting of Dross occurred on the reservation. And a subsequent murder claims the life of Eddie Jacoby who, before he was stabbed to death, had been trying to persuade the Ojibwe to hire his management firm to run their casino.

Cork pulls together a solid team to investigate the shooting and the fatal stabbing, but even as progress is being made, key questions remain. It turns out the shooter who injured the sheriff’s deputy was a hired gun. And when a seemingly credible suspect in Jacoby’s murder has to be ruled out, it’s back to square one in that case.

Despite the time-consuming, and sometimes dangerous, demands  of his job, Cork is a devoted family man, and his wife and three children provide a valuable counterpoint to the ongoing investigations.

Cork’s wife, Jo, is an attorney, and she and Cork both have ties to the Ojibwe, either professionally or personally. Jo often represents the local band of the tribe. As for Cork, he’s part Ojibwe, thanks to a grandmother who was a full-blooded tribal member. To an extent, that leaves him torn between two worlds. “When people are pissed at me,” Cork says, “I’m not Ojibwe enough for the Ojibwes, and not white enough for the whites.”

As the criminal investigations continue, Jo’s life — and Cork’s too — suddenly become more complicated when Ben Jacoby, the murder victim’s brother, arrives in Aurora following his brother’s death. Long before Jo met Cork, she and Ben were lovers as law school students.

Krueger packs plenty of action into Mercy Falls. As if one shooting and one murder aren't enough, a second murder occurs. Even when it eventually becomes clear who committed all three crimes, Cork’s life remains in jeopardy when an old, vengeful and misguided man blessed with great wealth but no sense puts a $500,000 bounty on Cork’s head. There's no denying that Krueger knows how to keep readers turning the pages.

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.

Review: "Purgatory Ridge," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

Once a cop, always a cop?

That’s an open question at the start of Purgatory Ridge, the third of 19 books in William Kent Krueger’s (mostly) Minnesota-based mystery series featuring Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor.

A onetime Chicago cop and, more recently, the sheriff of rural Tamarack County in northern Minnesota, O’Connor has been at loose ends since voters tossed him out as sheriff. They did so after O’Connor fatally shot a resort owner who gunned down O’Connor’s close friend, an indigenous man named Sam Winter Moon.

O’Connor’s replacement as sheriff has announced that he will not seek reelection, prompting local Democratic leaders to urge O’Connor to try for a comeback. But O’Connor, who is of Irish and Ojibwe ancestry, is undecided, in part because his wife Jo, a lawyer who represents the local Ojibwe people, is not at all keen on the idea.

Whether O’Connor has a political future gets bumped to the back burner when an explosion at a lumber mill in O’Connor’s home town of Aurora kills an Ojibwe man, Charlie Warren. The hot-tempered mill owner, Karl Lindstrom, has long been at odds with the Ojibwe over his plans to harvest old-growth white pines (known as “Our Grandfathers,” to the Ojibwe).

Did Warren plant the explosive to sabotage the mill and accidentally kill himself in the process, as Lindstrom suggests? The O’Connors think the idea is preposterous because Warren was well-respected and peaceful, but investigators are withholding judgment.

Perhaps some other, more radical, Ojibwe was responsible? Or one of the militant white demonstrators who gather outside the mill to protest Lindstrom’s harvesting? The publisher of the local newspaper says a self-described but anonymous “eco-warrior” from something called the “Army of the Earth” has claimed responsibility in a phone call. Additional theories emerge as the novel unfolds, including one involving an embittered man with a grievance that has nothing to do with the fate of “Our Grandfathers.”

The suspense builds as the plot picks up speed. Someone blows up a boat in an attempted murder. Four people, including two children, are kidnapped for ransom. The U.S. Forest Service is called in to fight a raging wildfire that threatens to engulf “Our Grandfathers.” A group of indigenous men are taken into custody in the mistaken belief that they are terrorists. Federal state and county law enforcement agencies are all drawn into the fray. As is O’Connor, of course.

Eventually, things go from bad to worse. Much worse.

The appeal of the early novels in Krueger’s series (I’ve only read the first three) extends beyond the mysteries that O’Connor invariably plays a major part in solving, despite his status as a mere civilian.

For one thing, Krueger, who lives in Minnesota, has a clear attachment to the Ojibwe, who consistently emerge as compelling characters. One of the most intriguing in Purgatory Ridge is Henry  Meloux, an elderly Ojibwa of great serenity and wisdom. Krueger works occasional Ojibwe terms into the text (such as manidoog, or spirits of the lake), providing an added layer of authenticity.

Moreover, O’Connor’s personal life makes for compelling reading as well. He and Jo have reconciled since each of them cheated on the other, but their marriage remains somewhat troubled at the outset of Purgatory Ridge. If you add to the mix their two teenage daughters, their young son, and Jo’s unmarried, live-in sister, family dynamics provide an interesting counterpoint to the sleuthing that is at the heart of the novels.

Purgatory Ridge builds to a riveting climax featuring a surprise ending that should leave mystery fans eager to dive into Blood Hollow, the fourth installment in this engrossing series.

Review: "Boundary Waters," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

In Iron Lake, the 1998 debut in his long-running Cork O’Connor series, William Kent Krueger delivered a riveting mystery set in Aurora, a small town in northern Minnesota.

O’Connor, a former sheriff of Irish and Anishinaabe descent who has three children and is separated from his wife, is perfectly content in Aurora, where he lives in a Quonset hut that also houses a burger stand that he operates with his daughters.

But Boundary Waters, the second entry in the series, takes O’Connor far afield when he joins a party of men (and a very memorable young boy) searching for Shiloh, a country music star whose life is in danger. Shiloh is believed to be hiding in the Boundary Waters, aka the Quetico-Superior Wilderness. A rugged and watery area west of Lake Superior, it runs along the U.S.-Canada border in Minnesota and Ontario.

Who is after the artist, and why? As a young girl, Shiloh witnessed her mother’s murder, but she has long had no recollection of any details. Under a therapist’s care, however, she may have recovered repressed memories that could help investigators identify and apprehend the killer. Unless the murderer, or perhaps others with a competing interest in silencing Shiloh, find her first.

So the stakes are high for the country star. Her stepfather says letters she wrote to him have been stolen. A friend of Shiloh’s is murdered, and letters Shiloh wrote to her disappear as well. Shiloh’s therapist is murdered and her files are destroyed.

The would-be rescuers have problems of their own. In addition to O’Connor, their ranks include the singer-songwriter’s stepfather, two men with law-enforcement backgrounds who claim to be FBI agents; and Stormy Two Knives, an Ojibwe ex-con traveling with his young son, Louis. Two Knives’ uncle, who has disappeared, is the guide who took Shiloh into the wilderness, and Louis seems to know the route, so the agents coerce Two Knives into bringing the boy along.

The agents are domineering, and they view Two Knives with suspicion. The feeling is mutual, and although O’Connor tries to smooth the waters, tensions mount after one of the agents is killed with an axe. The murder occurs while the group is camping in the wilderness and the victim is alone on sentry duty. Suspiciously, Two Knives, armed with an axe, is out in the nearby woods at the same time, ostensibly collecting firewood.

If that isn't troublesome enough, the situation deteriorates further, for Shiloh and for the rescuers. Louis, the 10-year-old Ojibwe boy, emerges as a hero, but the bad guys in Boundary Waters are very bad indeed, as we soon learn.

It takes a while for the reader to determine whether some of the characters are friend or foe, adding another layer of suspense to the fast-moving plot. Even the presumed motive for killing Shiloh — to prevent her from revealing her mother’s murderer — comes into question as the novel unfolds.

As in the first book in the series, the Anishinaabe are a visible and important element in Boundary Waters, in part because of O’Connor’s mixed ancestry. (Anishinaable is a collective term for several indigenous peoples, including the Ojibwe.) Krueger judiciously inserts a smattering of Anishinaabe lore, beliefs and vocabulary into the narrative (with translations, of course).

That indigenous presence is keenly felt throughout Boundary Waters, adding a compelling perspective that makes this well-told tale all the more enjoyable.

Review: "Iron Lake," William Kent Krueger

By Paul Carrier

Working on the assumption that it’s always best to begin a book series at, well, the beginning, I recently turned the clock back a quarter of a century and grabbed a copy of Iron Lake, the first of William Kent Krueger’s 19 (to date) Cork O’Connor mysteries.

It was well worth the trip.

Published in 1998, Iron Lake is set in northern Minnesota, where the protagonist, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor, makes his home. A former Tamarack County sheriff based in the small town of Aurora, Cork is part Irish and part Anishinaabe, an umbrella term for a group of indigenous peoples that includes the Ojibwe (also known as the Chippewa).

As Iron Lake unfolds, Cork’s marriage to an attorney is on the rocks and he finds himself shacked up with a waitress. When he tries to help a local woman find her son, who disappeared while delivering newspapers, Cork discovers that a retired judge has died, possibly by suicide but more probably at the hands of a killer.

The death toll mounts as Cork launches a dangerous investigation of what proves to be a wide-ranging scandal that ensnares whites and Ojibwe alike. Iron Lake builds to a heart-pounding climax that leaves the reader wondering until the last possible moment who, among the remaining characters, will live and who will die.

Iron Lake is well-plotted and its characters are compelling, but what gives the novel an edge is the sometimes mystical presence of the Ojibwe, who figure prominently in the plot.

Cork may see himself as more white than Ojibwe, but he retains an indigenous sensibility as well, thanks in large part to his childhood relationship with his native grandmother and an Ojibwe hunter named Sam Winter Moon.

Thus, when it is suggested that a malevolent spirit known as a Windigo is abroad in the land, Cork initially dismisses it as a myth. But a part of him “knew different,” Krueger writes. “Sam Winter Moon had cautioned him long ago that it was best to believe in all possibilities, that there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.”

Iron Lake includes asides about the history, beliefs and practices of the Anishinaabe, who now live in the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada but who appear to have originated in the Northeast or Québec before migrating westward.

In his acknowledgements, Krueger expresses his gratitude to Ojibwe whom he consulted and to “those who’ve chronicled the Anishinaabe culture, past and present,” several of whom he identifies by name.