TIME TO FALL INTO A FEW GOOD BOOKS

By John Clark

Now that summer, or what passed for one, is slipping into fall, I have some very interesting book reviews to share. One of the most enjoyable aspects of public librarianship is selecting new books for patrons to enjoy. Over the past fifteen years, I have found the reviews in Booklist, published by the American Library Association, to be a great way to discover new authors.

In 1998, a Booklist review of Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger caught my attention. I bought the book and liked it a lot, a sentiment shared by many of my mystery-loving patrons.

When the story opens, the protagonist, Cork O’Connor, is struggling to salvage his relationship with his estranged wife Jo, a lawyer and legal advocate for the local Indian tribe, while trying to maintain a healthy relationship with their two teenage daughters. Part Irish and part Ojibwe Indian, Cork is an interesting and appealing new character in the mystery genre who has moved his family from Chicago back home to northern Minnesota. His hope of a better quality of life quickly deteriorates following his failed bid for reelection as sheriff, and he finds himself running a combination restaurant and gift shop. The disappearance of a Native American newsboy and the apparent suicide of a former judge quickly drag Cork into the thick of things. Confrontation with the dead judge’s son, who is a newly elected senator and Jo’s lover, quickly complicate his life and add a very nice tension to the story.

A year later, Boundary Waters appeared, bringing Cork, his family, and a new cast of baddies back. This time Cork was investigating the disappearance of the daughter of a country and western star who had somehow attracted the attention of both the FBI and a gangster involved in an Indian casino. I particularly liked the way the author wove Cork’s interactions with his estranged wife and their children into the plot, creating a sleuth with a large dose of humanity and its accompanying human frailties. Both books were set in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, with Krueger’s characterization and description of the countryside reminding me of Gerry Boyle’s skills in these areas.

William Kent Krueger took a break in 2000. The following year, he wrote Purgatory Ridge. Cork and family return, this time starting with a bang when the local sawmill explodes, leaving the corpse of an Ojibwe Indian who was extremely vocal about the extensive cutting going on in the nearby primeval forest. Krueger ramps up the tension in this book by having two parallel plots going in addition to the ongoing uneasy relationship between Cork and his wife. It is worth noting that both Jo and the daughters are fully fleshed characters in all three books and not merely tossed in to make the story work. Purgatory Ridge begins to cross that delicious line between mysteries and thrillers.

Mr. Krueger took another break between 2001 and 2003. In the interim, I took a new job that didn’t involve buying books and thus lost track of his work. Late this summer, I decided to look him up in MINERVA, the shared online library catalog that represents the holdings of some fifty Maine Libraries. To my immense delight, I found he had written two more books.

The Devil’s Bed, published in 2003, is a stand-alone thriller with several very appealing plot twists. The story involves a number of characters who are psychologically scarred: the wife of the president of the United States; a former classmate of hers, turned elite killer with a psychotic grudge against her and her father; plus the secret service agent, entrusted with the task of protecting her when she comes to the family farm in Minnesota to care for her father after a puzzling accident leaves him near death. The situation is complicated by her husband’s reelection struggle in the midst of their deteriorating marital relationship.

Intermingled with the emotional tension between first lady Kate Dixon and Bo Thorsen, the agent responsible for guarding her, are Bo’s efforts to track the mysterious former government assassin who has escaped from a mental institution after killing a street person while in an acute psychotic state. This shadow assassin, aided by a secret government group intent upon getting President Clay Dixon reelected, manages to kill at will and eventually discredits Bo so badly he finds himself on the run. Bo must stay one step ahead of the very people he counted as comrades, while figuring out who is really out to kill Kate.

This book could very easily have fallen apart at several critical junctures. However, the author avoided these pitfalls and crafted an extremely good read, the kind that forces you to remain bleary eyed until the wee hours in order to satisfy your curiosity.

In early 2004, William Krueger published the fourth Cork O’Connor mystery, Blood Hollow. I finished it the evening before writing this review. This time Cork ends up investigating the disappearance of a young woman who went roaring off on a snowmobile just before a monster snowstorm hits. When her body is discovered in the spring, her former boyfriend, Solemn Winter Moon, a troubled Ojibwe teen, is the prime suspect. When the boy vanishes, Cork goes looking for him and convinces the reluctant teen to return and face justice. Cork soon becomes convinced that Solemn is innocent. If he is, then who killed Charlotte Kane?

By the time Cork unmasks the killer, his daughters have been stalked, the victim has been found to be more than anyone expected, and Solemn has become a minor celebrity after an unusual spiritual experience. Blood Hollow is more mystical and convoluted than the three prior books featuring Cork O’Connor. Some reviews have found fault with it for exactly those reasons. I thought they made it a richer book.

If you enjoy mysteries with a good grounding in place and developing characters, I encourage you to start with Iron Lake and savor all five books as winter sneaks up on us. 

 

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