Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger

Published by Atria Books on August 20, 2024

Spirit Crossing is the latest entry in William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. Cork is a former county sheriff. Now he lends an unofficial hand to friends who work for local police agencies, including tribal officer Daniel English. In Spirit Crossing, Cork shares the spotlight with English and several other characters, including Waaboo, who Daniel's wife found under a rock.

Waaboo sees dead people. We know from earlier novels that some Native characters have visions and can chat with spirits. Waaboo sees a young woman standing in a blueberry patch where her body is buried. It could be the body of Olivia Hamilton or Crystal Two Knives, two women who have recently gone missing. State authorities have been steering the tribal police away from Olivia’s case because her parents have influence and higher authorities need to coddle them.

After Daniel digs up the body, he realizes the victim was a Native. Since Olivia is white, outside law enforcement agencies quickly lose interest. Daniel doesn’t know whether the body is Crystal’s, but he hopes that investigating Crystal’s disappearance might shed light on Olivia’s fate.

Cork and Daniel (sometimes with Waaboo’s help over his protective mother’s objections) join with local cops to solve the mystery. The characters often discuss the reality that a missing white girl leads to obsessive reporting while the media ignore missing Native girls. Krueger tried to make a good point, but he couldn't resist the urge to add human trafficking to the story. Little originality is on display in Spirit Crossing.

Mild action scenes (meaning that characters actually move around) arrive at expected intervals, but this isn’t a pulse-pounding thriller. A bad guy occasionally takes a shot at groups of good guys but never manages to hit one, despite using a deer rifle. It’s hard to believe that Minnesota deer hunters would be such poor shots.

Series fans might appreciate the wrinkle thrown into the characters’ lives when they learn that Cork’s daughter Annie has an inoperable brain tumor. Only Maria, Annie’s lover from Guatemala, knows about Annie’s health condition. If this sounds to you like Telemundo content, I had that same thought.

The characters have folksy, familial, serious conversations about each other’s lives. The accumulated dialog seems like little more than a modernized version of soap opera gossip. Redundant discussions about health and family issues slow the pace of a novel that it is no hurry to reach a destination.

Several asides in the narrative address the fear and anger that accompany an anticipated death, culminating in Henry Meloux’s advice about returning to the Creator with an open heart. Henry, the wise old Native who offers spiritual guidance to anyone who listens, is a stereotype. Unfortunately, redundant conversations about “crossing over” and “walking the path of souls” contribute to the story’s languid pace.

At times, Spirit Crossing reads like Christian lit with Native American religions substituting for Christianity. The characters spend a good bit of time discussing “the Great Mystery” and God and their anger at God and their strained belief in a deity’s existence. Waaboo seems to be plugged into the spirit world and is positioned to reassure everyone that there really is an afterlife, an assurance that comforts the characters and might do the same for some readers.

The characters also spend a good amount of time preaching the value of forgiveness and of understanding the forces that shape people who perform evil acts. I am in favor of forgiveness and understanding but the characters’ repeated discussions of spiritual values impede a story that already proceeds at a slow pace.

The plot is straightforward but less than scintillating. The notion that a bad guy would want to kill Waaboo to stop him from gathering more evidence from dead people seems farfetched to me, but these criminals aren’t the brightest villains. The crime solvers interview people to gather information, but they rely more on Waaboo’s connection with the spirit world than on deduction. This isn’t the kind of mystery that will impress Sherlock Holmes fans, but it might engage series fans.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger

Published by Atria Books on September 5, 2023

The River We Remember offers crime fiction fans a balanced blend of plot and characterization. Rooted in dysfunctional families, the story is a murder mystery that sets up suspects who might have committed a murder that caused no great loss to the community. Set in rural Minnesota in the 1950s, the action takes place against a background of post-war hatred of the Japanese and ongoing hatred of Native Americans.

Brody Dern is the sheriff of Black Earth County. Brody saw too much death in the war. He holds himself responsible for a friend’s death and cannot forgive himself for his actions. He later escaped from a Japanese POW camp and regards himself as a coward for seizing the opportunity to escape. Brody is unmarried but is involved in a relationship that does not reflect well upon his character.

Jimmy Quinn is an abusive drunk. He is the county’s largest landowner and is wealthy and powerful for that reason, although he is almost universally despised. He is on his second wife, a relative of his first wife. A hereditary condition caused the death of his first wife and will soon kill the second. Quinn’s conduct with his other family members is appalling. It isn’t surprising that someone finally killed him.

A man comes across Quinn’s dead body in the Alabaster River. A shotgun blast opened holes Quinn’s body that made his innards accessible to hungry catfish. Surmising that the body floated downriver, Brody leads a search for the location at which Quinn entered the river. He finds Quinn’s shotgun in a large pool of blood near the river. Did he shoot himself, either accidentally or in the commission of suicide? In the absence of an explanation for how a man who lost so much blood could have entered the river under his own power, it seems likely that he was murdered.

Brody does his best to avoid drawing that conclusion. He doesn’t think it will be good for the county to search for a murderer who did the community a favor by dispatching Quinn. Circumstances (and the former sheriff’s persistent reminders that Brody has a job to do) nevertheless force Brody to undertake a murder investigation.

Community suspicion quicky focuses on Noah Bluestone, a Dakota Sioux who returned from the war married to a Japanese woman. His race and the race of his wife are two strikes against him in a community that doesn’t see the need for a third strike. Only the courageous publisher of the local paper stands up for Noah’s right to a fair trial. When ambiguous evidence seems to point to Noah’s guilt, he refuses to take any action to defend himself for reasons that become part of the underlying mystery.

Tyler Creasy is another abusive drunk. He’s certain that Noah killed Quinn because Quinn fired Noah and his wife from their jobs as farmhand and housekeeper. Creasy has a son named Del who is a good friend of a boy named Sam. The boys’ mischief forms a subplot that eventually merges with the main story. While subplots pile on other subplots, it is a credit to William Kent Krueger that the story never becomes confusing.

Romance provides additional subplots. Unaware of Brody’s messy romantic entanglement, Sam’s mother Angie would like to have a go at Brody. Like Brody, she has a dark backstory. Whether Brody will (or can) return her affection is a subplot that adds interest to Brody’s life. He’s a troubled man who, despite being haunted by regrettable decisions, is a reasonably decent individual. It is easy for a reader to want Brody’s participation in the story to end well.

The plot is complicated by the drama that infects multiple families who are important to the story. The reader will need to sort through a good bit of dirty laundry to learn whether Noah or someone else killed Quinn.

By the end of the story, other lives are placed in peril, giving rise to a couple of credible action scenes. The conclusion is not entirely happy. I respect Krueger’s willingness to write an honest story that doesn’t pander to readers who want their fictional worlds to be better than the real world. At the same time, the unhappy aspect of the novel is convenient in its creation of an ending that will improve the lives of other characters who will have earned the reader’s sympathy.

Quinn’s complexity is at war with his desire for simplicity. That conflict makes him interesting. The key women in the novel have all lived difficult lives but have all persevered. One became a lawyer who is appointed to defend Noah. The women of greatest importance to the story have managed to retain a sense of decency and compassion. They have a strength that the evil men who surround them lack.

That so many people with such tragic lives have all collected in a rural county in Minnesota might be hard to believe, but who knows the secrets harbored by people who live in remote locations? People do what they want to do, uninhabited by their violation of the values that their community professes to follow. I easily set aside my skepticism about the onrush of subplots so that I could enjoy a strong mystery that is populated by an abundance of well-developed characters.

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Fox Creek by William Kent Krueger

Published by ‎ Atria Books on August 23, 2022

The theft of natural resources from Native people is the dominant theme of Fox Creek, but much of the story is a suspenseful wilderness adventure. The novel is the latest in the long-running Cork O’Connor series.

Cork is flipping burgers at his northern Minnesota restaurant, trying to live a peaceful life but still helping people with private investigations. A man who identifies himself as Louis Morriseau asks Cork to help him find his missing wife. Morriseau suspects that Dolores is fooling around with Henry Meloux. Morriseau clearly doesn’t understand that Henry is literally one hundred years old. And while he’s still energetic and might indeed have lead in his aging pencil, Henry is a medicine man and spiritual guide who is more interested in healing people than shagging them.

Cork’s wife Rainy is related to Henry. It doesn’t take Cork long to find Dolores, who has come to Henry is search of guidance. Nor does it take Cork long to learn that the man who contacted him is not Lou Morriseau. It is Lou (the real one) who has gone missing. Lou is a real estate lawyer who has been spending time in Canada for reasons that he hasn’t explained to Dolores.

Cork eventually makes it his mission to help Dolores. He’s joined in that effort by his son Stephen, Rainy, Henry, Lou’s brother Anton and his sister Belle, and various Natives who rally to the cause when needed.

Lou’s disappearance apparently has something to do with a hand-drawn map that bears the word KILLCATIE. Stephen and Belle are tasked with digging into that cryptic clue. The wilderness adventure begins when Henry and Rainy disappear with Dolores. Henry is an unparalleled woodsman, but he’s pursued by a Native tracker of nearly equal skill named LeLoup, who is accompanied by a couple of less skilled killers. As LeLoup tracks Henry’s group, Cork tracks LeLoup.

The story offers a satisfying resolution to the mystery of KILLCATIE, a mystery based on the credible premise that white people are again trying to enrich themselves by depriving Natives of resources. The wilderness adventure is enhanced by vivid descriptions of the Boundary Waters and the perils of staying alive in snowy woods, even when trackers aren’t pursuing with rifles.

The adventure turns into an interesting spiritual journey for some of its participants, although it affects them in different ways. That journey could have been hokey, but William Kent Krueger makes it seem authentic. Krueger is too respectful of Native people to leave the impression that he’s using Native beliefs as a prop. The story ends on a note of hope, in the sense that it suggests that it is never too late to set a life on its correct path. This is always an interesting series, and Fox Creek lives up to Krueger’s high standard.

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Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger

Published by Atria Books on August 24, 2021

Lightning Strike is a prequel to the Cork O’Connor series. The story begins with Cork being sworn in as the new Sheriff of Tamarack County in Northern Minnesota. After a county resident complains that he's the first “redskin” to become sheriff, Cork recalls his father, Liam, who also held the sheriff’s position. Cork’s memories take the reader to 1963 when Cork was a pre-teen, delivering newspapers and hanging out with his two best friends, Billy Downwind and Jorge Patterson. Jorge’s mother is Mexican and Billy, like Cork’s mother, is Ojibwe.

Like all good mysteries, Lightning Strike is based on misdirection. Three deaths occur, apparently unrelated, but mystery fans will understand that multiple deaths in a mystery are always related. The mystery is the culprit’s identity. William Kent Krueger plants clues that might help the reader guess the answer, but he also sets up several other suspects who might have a motive for committing at least one of the murders.

When Cork and Jorge visit a clearing on the Shore of Iron Lake known as Lightning Strike, they are shocked to find Big John Manydeeds hanging from a rope. An autopsy reveals a high blood alcohol content, which is consistent with the cases of empty whiskey bottles found behind Big Johns’ home. People on the rez all believed that Big John had stopped drinking and are unwilling to accept the fact of his apparent suicide. They are suspicious of Liam’s apparent unwillingness to investigate the death, viewing Big John’s demise as another case in which white law enforcement turns its back on Indians.

Murder suspects accumulate after Liam, prodded by his wife and mother-in-law, begins to consider the possibility that Big John didn’t kill himself. Big John may have been carrying on with the wife of Duncan McDermid, who owns the local iron mine, but the local judge isn’t interested in issuing search warrants related to that investigation because McDermid is white and powerful. Big John also had more than a few fights with his stepbrother, who happens to be Billy’s uncle. At least three minor characters make repeat appearances, which mystery fans will realize is enough reason to put them on the short list of suspects.

A couple of plot elements distinguish Lightning Strike from typical mysteries. The spirit of Big John seems to appear from time to time, perhaps assisting the investigation of his murder, although never in a way that can’t be explained without a belief in spirits. Believe what you want, the story seems to say.

Cork plays a key role at several points as he searches for clues or contributes helpful insights. His efforts are credible — he makes no deductions that are beyond a child of his age — but the central role of a kid in a murder investigation gives the story a certain charm. Cork learns some life lessons as he ponders both Christian and Native American spiritual beliefs, ultimately recognizing that he’ll need to travel a long path before he finds satisfying answers about the meaning of life and death.

The theme of white hostility toward Native Americay.ns and Native American distrust of whites gives the story some weight without making it preachy. Lightning Strike is, at bottom, a well-crafted mystery with likeable characters. Action scenes at the end add a level of tension by placing Cork in danger. The novel is a good end-of-summer book for readers who are ready to transition away from beach reads but not quite ready for the heavy literary diet that winter might bring.

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