"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.

"Iron Lake" by William Kent Krueger

I first read William Kent Krueger’s literary novels, like Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land. Then I discovered he had written a considerable number of mysteries, the Cork O’Connor detective novels. In fact, the 21^st in the series was just published last week. I’ve read two of them out of sequence. And now I’m going back to the beginning. 

Iron Lake is the first Cork O’Connor mystery. As the story begins, O’Connor’s professional and private lives are both a shambles. A misstep caused him to lose re-election as sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota, and he and his noted-attorney wife are headed for divorce. He’s living on his own, but he’s also now involved with a local woman.

 

A young Eagle Scout goes missing after almost completely his paper route. The boy’s mother asks O’Connor to find him, and he traces the boy’s route to the last stop – the home of the town judge and a mover and shaker behind just about everything. O’Connor doesn’t find the boy, but he does find the body of the judge. It appears to be a suicide, but O’Connor has his doubts. 

 

Another death – this one definitely a murder – occurs, and O’Connor is convinced the two deaths are related. The new sheriff is in over his head, so O’Connor does some sleuthing on his own – and finds photograph negatives. It seems this dead man like to take compromising photographs, and one set strike close to O’Connor himself. And it appears the man worked for the judge, who may have been up to his eyeballs in blackmail.

 

William Kent Krueger

O’Connor’s father was Irish American, his mother was Anishhinaabe Indian. He fits in neither camp comfortably, but he has a foot in both. And that outsider will serve him well in unraveling the mystery of the two dead men and the missing boy.

 

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.

 

Iron Lake is a finely crafted mystery, with excellent character development, a solid plot, and realistic dialogue. With its nail-biting climax, I’m not sure whether to call it a mystery or a thriller. But it is a thoroughly good read.

 

Related:

 

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

 

Murders for September – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Just Look Up! – Jonathan Rosen at The Free Press.

 

Endowment returns – editorial by The New Criterion.

"Lightning Strike" by William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger is known for his wonderful coming of novels, stories like This Tender Land and Ordinary Grace. He’s also known for a considerable number of mystery stories featuring sheriff Cork O’Connor, Irish American on his father’s side and half Irish American and half Ojibwe Native American on his mother’s side.  

In his most recent novel, Lightning Strike, Kruger brings the coming-of-age story together with an O’Connor story, except the sheriff here is Liam O’Connor, Cork’s father. And the coming-of-age story is about 12-year-old Cork.

 

During a planned hike aimed at a Boy Scout merit badge, Cork and his best friend Jorge find a gruesome sight. In a well-known part of the Aurora, Minnesota, region where they live, a family friend and Ojibwe, Big John Manyworks, is hanging from a tree, an apparent suicide. Despite his troubled past, Big John didn’t seem the type to kill himself, but the evidence looks conclusive. Cork, however, is not convinced, and twice he sees a giant, menacing shadow that he believes is the spirit of Big John. 

 

William Kent Krueger

Cork’s father Liam undertakes an investigation. It still looks like suicide, but there are too many questions going unanswered. Gradually, Liam, with more than a little help from his son, discovers what wasn’t suicide at all but murder. And suspects abound: Big John’s half-brother Oscar; the richest man in town who owns the iron mine; and others. Cork takes counsel with an Ojibwe elder, who tells him to follow the crumbs. And it will lead Cork and friends right into deadly danger.

 

Krueger’s Cork O’Connor novels are all set in the North Woods of Minnesota. He’s also published three standalone novels: Ordinary Grace, The Devil’s Bed, and This Tender Land. He’s received a number of 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.

 

Lightning Strike deftly combines the conflict between white and Ojibwe cultures, the suspicions and mistrust of reservation people (including Liam’s own mother-in-law), a mystery of a staged suicide and a missing teenager, and the times of the early 1960s to create an intriguing, engrossing story. 

 

Related:

 

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.

 

Tamarack County by William Kent Krueger.

"Tamarack County" by William Kent Krueger

It begins with a murder. A 70-year-old woman in Tamarack County, Minnesota, is driving home on a cold, snowy day. As she pulls into her long, winding driveway, she sees someone she knows, kneeling in the snow. Minutes later, she’s dead. Her car is found miles away, but she’s believed at first to be missing. 

A beloved dog is killed, and his head is missing from the body. Two teenagers are followed by a mysterious pickup truck and eventually run off the road, nearly dying. All of these incidents seem unrelated and random, by former sheriff and now private investigator Cork O’Connor begins to sense connections. 

 

O’Connor has his own personal problems. His great love has gone to Arizona to help her son. His youngest daughter unexpectedly returns home from her Catholic religious order, refusing to say anything about why she’s home. His teenaged son is smitten with a new love. And O’Connor himself finds himself attracted to the mother of his son’s new girlfriend.

 

William Kent Krueger

Tamarack County is the 13^th Cork O’Connor mystery by William Kent Krueger. Reading the 13^th mystery novel in a series of 18 a bit disorienting, because you quickly realize there’s considerable back story. Krueger does well, however, to write the book so that the disorientation is kept to a minimum. It’s a fascinating story, with the reader kept wondering (and reading to find out) how all of these seemingly disparate events (and crimes) can possibly be connected.

 

Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series are all set in the North Woods of Minnesota. He’s also published three standalone novels: Ordinary Grace, The Devil’s Bed, and This Tender Land. He’s received a number of 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.

 

Krueger has created an engaging, sympathetic hero in Cork O’Connor. He’s a flawed man, but he’s instinctively the kind of man we want around in a crisis – or a crime spree. Tamarack County is so good that I plan to go back and read the first 12 in the series.

 

Related:

 

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.

“Ordinary Grace” by William Kent Krueger

It’s the summer of 1961. Frank Drum is 13. He’s a preacher’s kid; his father is a Methodist minister but also handles the preaching for two other churches. With his parents, his 18-year-old sister Ariel, and his 11-year-old brother Jake, Frank lives in the town of New Bremen, Minnesota. It’s the kind of place where you can still get icy root beers at the drugstore’s soda fountain.

It’s a glorious summer. It also becomes the summer of five deaths. The summer when everything changed, the summer when life became fragile and uncertain.

The first death is a six-year-old boy, who would be called autistic today. He ignored or simply didn’t hear the train coming. The second is a homeless man, who seems to have died of natural causes. But it’s the next three deaths that strain the family and the town to the breaking point and beyond. And Frank and Jake are caught up in all of the deaths, as both observers and sometimes the ones who find the bodies and overhear what the adults are saying. Frank in particular knows and comes to understand far more than he should.

William Kent Krueger

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, published in 2013, is a coming-of-age novel, but it’s also much more. It’s a mystery, it’s a romance, and it’s a tragedy. It’s a novel with links to the past, to secrets, to first loves, to bullies, and to class structure in small towns. It’s a novel about music and faith and God. And it’s a novel about grace, and just how awful grace can sometimes be.

Krueger has published 18 mystery novels in the Cork O’Connor series, set in the North Woods of Minnesota, and three standalone novels: Ordinary Grace, The Devil’s Bed, and This Tender Land. He’s received a number of 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.

Ordinary Grace builds slowly before it suddenly begins to accelerate and becomes almost impossible to put down. The characters are drawn exactly right. The turmoil experienced by a 13-year-old boy seems almost to have come from a lived experience. It’s a moving, sensitive, wonderful atory.

Related:

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

"This Tender Land" by William Kent Krueger

It’s 1932, and American society is moving toward the pit of the Great Depression. Odie and Albert O’Banion are brothers, sent as orphans to the Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota after the death of their father. Odie is 12 and Albert is 16, and they are the only white faces in a sea of Indian children at the school, removed from their parents for “reeducation.” 

The school is a nasty place, run by a nasty headmistress and her husband. Punishment is meted out by a sadistic worker, who’s rumored to do more than punish disobedient children. Odie has a particular problem with following the school’s rules, and he often finds himself in “the quiet room,” a tiny, unheated cell that more than resembles solitary confinement in a prison. The best thing about the cell is the rat, nicknamed Faria, which visits looking for crumbs. When not in the quiet room, boys will find themselves hired out to local farmers, with their pay going to the school.

The school situation isn’t entirely bleak; a young teacher finds ways to ease the harsh conditions and a janitor befriends Albert and watches out for Odie and their Indian friend Mose, at least until she dies in a tornado and leaves her young daughter an orphan. And then, one night, Odie is sent to the quiet room, and the sadistic worker decides the boy will finally get what’s coming to him. Odie has to fight for his life, and the worker will end up dead from a fall. Odie, Albert, and Mose decide to leave; they take Emmy, the teacher’s daughter, with them and head for the Gilead River. 

Soon they’re canoeing, with the vague plan of finding Odie and Albert’s aunt in St. Louis. In what becomes a kind of Huckleberry Finn story, the group will discover the good and evil in people and the evil of the times. Odie, in particular, will be fleeing from what he calls the Tornado God, the deity that seems only interested in punishment and destruction. The river, in addition to a highway, becomes a place of safety; the group learns that they are only really safe when they’re in the canoe, paddling for St. Louis.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger is the story of Odie, Albert, Mose, and Emmy. It’s a coming-of-age story set in harsh economic climate of the 1930s, with its Hoovervilles, desperate people, con men, faith healers, and revivalists like Aimee Semple McPherson. Because it’s a time of extremes, we also see the goodness that exists. Most of all, it’s a story about a boy named Odie, who will learn things about himself he never knew and find ways to survive in what seems a dark, capricious world.

William Kent Krueger

Krueger has published 18 mystery novels in the Cork O’Connor series, set in the North Woods of Minnesota, and three standalone novels: Ordinary Grace, The Devil’s Bed, and This Tender Land. He’s received a number of 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.

This Tender Land is a moving, engaging novel, even as the narrative hurries a bit too fast toward the end. You find yourself urging Odie and his band to get back to the river to safety, as they’re chased by both villains along the way and the long arm of the school’s headmistress. It’s a story of goodness surviving in the midst of evil, told through the eyes of a young boy. 

Top photograph: Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in Michigan, similar to the fictional school in Krueger's novel.