"Boundary Waters" by William Kent Krueger

A popular singer who goes by one name, Shiloh, quietly returns to the Aurora area. No one knows she’s there; she’s enlisted the help of Uncle Henry, an older and local native American, to hide her away in a cabin in the remote area known as the Boundary Waters, reachable only by canoe (or possibly helicopter) through several lakes and portages. It’s an isolated wilderness area, exactly what Shiloh was seeking.  

Since the story opens with the torture and presumed death of Uncle Henry, by someone seeking Shiloh, you know trouble is ahead, likely for the singer but likely for a lot of other people as well. When she was a very young child, Shiloh witnessed the death of her mother but was never able to recall what she’d seen. That is, until as an adult she had been taken through memory regression by a therapist. And now she’s in hiding.

 

The young woman’s stepfather arrives in Aurora and asks Cork O’Connor to help find Shiloh. Two FBI agents approach the local sheriff with the same quest. Cork enlists the help of local tribe member and his young son; the boy has been trained by Uncle Henry and knows the Boundary Waters region as well as anyone. And he knows where Shiloh is likely to be found.

 

William Kent Krueger

As their team sets out by canoe, other men come looking for Shiloh as well. But they’re hired to kill her – and anyone who might stand in their way. They’re followed by a wheelchair-bound man who’s a borderline gangster. He claims to be Shiloh’s father, and he wants her found as well.

 

Boundary Waters, the second in the Cork O’Connor mysteries by William Kent Krueger, keeps the reader guessing to the end. Who is it really who wants Shiloh dead? What does really know? Who tortured Uncle Henry to death? Krueger keeps moving the chess pieces around the board to make a feint here and throw a red herring there. Placing a child at risk layers in another element of suspense and tension. And Krueger cleverly keeps the story moving between the journey in the Boundary Waters and what’s happening back in Aurora.

 

Krueger’s Cork O’Connor novels are all set in the North Woods of Minnesota. Krueger’s also published three standalone novels: Ordinary Grace, The Devil’s Bed, and This Tender Land. He’s received several awards and recognitions, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, the Friends of American Writers Prize, and the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His last nine novels were all New York Times bestsellers. Krueger lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

Related:

 

Iron Lake by Wiliam Kent Krueger.

 

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.

Tamarack County by William Kent Krueger. 

Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

“When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” song by Patrick Gilmore – Debra Esolen at Word & Song.

 

New Grub Street: George Gissing’s Novel of the Writing World – Tim Page at The Wall Street Journal.

 

Mr, Popular Sentiment – Ferdinand Mount at The Lamp on the contemporary critics of Charles Dickens.