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.
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