William Kent KruegerResenhas

Fox Creek is a well thought out and researched book. Climate Change and the horrible fight for mankind to survive is the underlying premise for this story. The people most affected by the loss of resources are of course the poorest, the people of the First Nation in North America. Five stars were given in this review for the consistently good thrilling story. Enjoy!

The River We Remember, William Kent Krueger, author; CJ Wilson, narrator
When the novel begins, a body is discovered that has seemingly been eaten by catfish, after falling into the Alabaster River. This river is a sight to behold at certain times when it magically turns a brilliant white in the moonlight. As the victim’s death is analyzed, the cause is not what it at first appears to be. So, why does the sheriff clean the scene of the crime of any evidence to indicate who killed the man or why he was killed?
As the story proceeds, the reader is introduced to many characters, some that do not fit the mold of some of the townspeople. There is a Japanese woman resented because of her country’s part in the past war. There is the Native American, Noah Bluestone. who married Kyoko. He is maligned unfairly as a lawless man. There are veterans of different wars who are suffering from PTSD, there are widows of the war’s victims. There are young teenage boys influenced by their own lives and issues which make them stand apart. There are poignant legends of the Native American. There are men and women with monstrous secrets in their past history of abuse, neglect, brothels and murder. There are men who are amoral and there are drunks. There is Charlie, a compassionate, female lawyer at a time when there were few in the profession. There is the abuse of the weaker sex and the young. Who are vulnerable. Then, there is the richest man in town, whose body had just been discovered, brutally mutilated by the fish. His poor reputation, as that of an arrogant man and cruel taskmaster, preceded his still unexpected demise. Though it was thought that many harbored animosities toward him, because of his behavior toward them, one suspect stood out among the rest, because of a stereotypical and hypocritical mindset, prejudice, jealousy and perhaps greed.
This is not a town used to violence, so Jimmy Quinn’s death, though it may not be mourned as it would have been if he had been a kind man, it is still viewed with fear and doubt. Who would have done such a thing? Even if there were many people with motives, not many were capable of murder.
The book has drama, romance, mystery, humanity, compassion, and evil. It is also a coming-of-age novel for certain characters and it is a distinct illustration of morality and the lack of it, courage and cowardice. It is a picture of human frailty and human strength at their best and worst.
It is an examination of the horrors of war, the quest for survival at all costs, the flaws of society, the damaged human beings that need help, the bullies and the saints. Is everyone a bit of both?
The sheriff, Brody Dern, who seems like an honorable man has secrets. The woman, Angie, who runs the Wagon Wheel Café has secrets. The sister-in-law of the sheriff, Garnet, has secrets. The dead man has many secrets. Many of the townspeople suffer from nightmares because of their pasts.
As the secrets and characters are revealed, the story evolves seamlessly, even with its twists and turns. The very nature of humanity is explored, and the very flawed nature of humanity is revealed, along with its goodness. The tragedy of war is exposed. Not only the river remembers its history, each of the characters carries the burden of theirs and must deal with it.
The novel plays out in Jewel, in Black Earth County, Minnesota, with ordinary people who have the ordinary problems of life and then some. Their memories haunt them. Their dreams sometimes become nightmares. Like the Alabaster River that appears white only at certain times, they often appear differently at different times. However, the true character of people will come out, eventually. Nothing can remain hidden forever. What shapes us, our history, will eventually be revealed. We all experience both the harm and benefits of our past, but we all stay true to ourselves, in the end.

DNF. It’s too depressing. I read the plot summary after deciding not to finish, and it seems to stay depressing. Decent writing, interesting idea, but so much could have been done better here.

Book number 7 in the Cork O'Connor world--I think it's the best one so far. It deals with the backstory on Henry Meloux with a large dose of O'Connor family thrown in. It's exciting, the characters are good and believable. Excellent, satisfying series.

An incredible novella by one of my favorite authors! This historical fiction story is set during the 1927 Mississippi River flood that caused the river to swell to 80 miles wide south of Memphis. According to the author's notes at the end, Mr. Kent originally wrote this novella decades ago and decided to bring it out during the pandemic and complete his work. Lucky for us, it's amazing as all his book are!

This is the 4th book I've read by Krueger and I am finding him getting better as a story teller and writer as he goes along. This one finds Cork still slinging burgers and not being a cop, but drawn into a kidnapping that accidentally includes his wife and son. As he and Lindstrom try to free their wives and sons, turns out Lindstrom is behind the whole thing as he tries to circumvent a pre-nup with is wife before she can get a divorce from him and shut him out with nothing from her fortune. A feverish ending finally gets all of the bad guys dead and Cork and his family reunited.

KIRKUS: Third suspenser set in hardscrabble Aurora, Minnesota, featuring ex-sheriff Cork O’Connor (Iron Lake, 1998; Boundary Waters, 1999), whose lawyer wife represents the Anishinaabe tribe. The tribe holds sacred a great white pine woods they call Minishoomisag, or Our Grandfathers. Lumberman Karl Lindstrom’s mill lies close by the sacred wood—too close, say the Anishinaabe. The area becomes as feverish as the red sun through smoke arising from the sawmill following a mysterious explosion that kills a night watchman. Many locals want Cork to run for sheriff again and take on the case. Trouble is, Cork is part Anishinaabe himself and with the Anishinaabe under suspicion, and with his wife as their lawyer, the wiser course isn’t easily chosen.

Krueger’s stripped storytelling wins no prize for fine prose but does move straight down the track toward purgative vengeance and devastation.

Emotionally wiped out after finishing this book. Krueger does such a good job with character development making me develop emotional attachments to them. They go through a lot so it's a tough ride.

Very enjoyable read about small town life in Minnesota in 1958.

In “The River We Remember,” the fine 2023 novel by William Kent Krueger, it is not just the river that characters remember. Most of them have torn pasts they would like to forget. In many cases, that past involves their World War II experiences.

One of the characters is Sheriff Brody Dean, a war hero who doesn't feel like a hero. The year is 1958, and Brody is called to the bank of the Alabaster River, where the body of Jimmy Quinn, one of the most prominent, and least loved citizens of Jewel, Minn., has been found.

Brody would like to believe the shotgun death was either an accident or a suicide. If it was murder, he figures Jimmy Quinn probably deserved it. He wipes all prints off the shotgun to protect whoever might have done it.

Yet as much as everyone, including members of his own family, hated Quinn, there is someone they hate even more. That is Noah Bluestone, another war hero. But he is also a Dakota Sioux, and he married a Japanese woman. Soon evidence forces Brody to arrest Noah, against his own will.

There's much more going on in this novel. Brody carries on a long-term affair with his brother's wife, then falls for Angie, a former prostitute who runs a local diner in her new life. Unwise behavior by Angie's teenage son and his friend put them dangerously in the middle of this murder case. Both Noah and his wife refuse to talk about what really happened on the night Jimmy Quinn was killed.

This is a wonderfully written murder mystery that reads like a literary novel. Don't miss it.

preachy, melodramatic, sanctimonious

Very good essay at end of book about the writing of the Cork O'Connor series.

This historical fiction novella is set during the 1927 Mississippi River flood, during which the lower river, south of Memphis, Tennessee, bloated to 80 miles wide. Three prison inmates – Boone, Cassidy, and Dobbs – are released to help with rescues, supervised by a fourth, Mobley, who is a former priest. They have been pressed into this undertaking in exchange for a reduction in their sentences. Boone, the youngest and strongest, does the rowing, while Cassidy and Dobbs use poles to push debris out of he way and Mobley directs. They wind up at a large estate protected by a levee that will potentially breach. The estate, Ballymore, is owned by Mobley’s stubborn brother. Much to the chagrin of the rescuers, the stranded occupants are reluctant to leave.

Wonderful characters, as usual from Mr. Krueger. They grapple with pride, love, loyalty, and greed as the water rises and time ticks away. In the Author’s Note, Krueger says this story was originally inspired by the William Faulkner novella, “Old Man,” and written a couple of decades ago and reworked some years later, but then put aside again. This revision is a complete reworking of the story. This work is available in audiobook only, and was well narrated by J.D. Jackson.

Set in the already desperate times of the Great Depression, this beautifully written work of historical fiction follows the adventures and sometimes heartbreaking travails of four orphans who escape from a horrible Minnesota boarding school, Lincoln Indian Training School, where the students are mistreated, poorly fed, and abused in a number of ways by the unsavory adults in charge. Their vehicle of escape on the Gilead River in Minnesota is a canoe that is salvaged from the farm of the youngest escapee, five-year-old Emmy, that was destroyed in a tornado that also claimed the life of Emmy’s mother. They hope to paddle to the Mississippi River and then all the way to St. Louis where the narrator Odie (short for Odysseus) and his older brother, Albert, believe they have an aunt who they hope will take them in. Joining them on their journey is Mose, a Sioux whose tongue was cut out by his mother’s murderers, and who meets other Sioux along the way who enlighten him about the genocide of their people. The story is at times heartbreaking, but it is filled with examples of courage, kindness, and stubborn determination that serve as counterweights to the meanness and violence of some of the characters they encounter.

I "discovered" William Kent Krueger via a much later book he wrote, This Tender Land, which is one of my favorite books of the 21st century. Someone then loaned me his book Ordinary Grace, which is also beautiful. Someone else mentioned that she was a huge fan of his Cork O'Connor series. And that is how I eventually got here. Crime drama is not my ordinary go-to genre. It is not that I don't like it, it is just that with so many books to choose from, there are other genres that appeal more to me. I kept thinking I might check out the first book, but I kept putting it off. This year, I signed up for the PopSugar Reading Challenge (which to me, is like a joyful literary scavenger hunt), and one of the prompts is "a book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title." I immediately thought of Iron Lake. Glad I did. I already knew Krueger writes compelling fiction, and this book, published almost 23 years ago, is no exception. Dimensional, flawed characters set against an unforgiving winter landscape; throw in a bit about Minnesota Native American culture; add a pinch of broken relationships; tangle it up in a web of blackmail, embezzlement, intimidation, and murder -- and what you get is page-turning, elevated crime drama.

Merged review:

I "discovered" William Kent Krueger via a much later book he wrote, This Tender Land, which is one of my favorite books of the 21st century. Someone then loaned me his book Ordinary Grace, which is also beautiful. Someone else mentioned that she was a huge fan of his Cork O'Connor series. And that is how I eventually got here. Crime drama is not my ordinary go-to genre. It is not that I don't like it, it is just that with so many books to choose from, there are other genres that appeal more to me. I kept thinking I might check out the first book, but I kept putting it off. This year, I signed up for the PopSugar Reading Challenge (which to me, is like a joyful literary scavenger hunt), and one of the prompts is "a book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title." I immediately thought of Iron Lake. Glad I did. I already knew Krueger writes compelling fiction, and this book, published almost 23 years ago, is no exception. Dimensional, flawed characters set against an unforgiving winter landscape; throw in a bit about Minnesota Native American culture; add a pinch of broken relationships; tangle it up in a web of blackmail, embezzlement, intimidation, and murder -- and what you get is page-turning, elevated crime drama.

Ordinary Grace takes place in 1961, a momentous summer in the life of thirteen-year-old Frank Drum, his family, and his community of New Bremen, Minnesota. Frank narrates the story through the filter of the forty years that have passed since the events, including four deaths, occurred. The characters, the place, the time all come alive in Willian Kent Krueger’s masterful prose. The story is both uplifting and dark, part redemption tale, part crime drama. Outstanding.

I thought I had read everything written by William Kent Kuerger but, somehow I missed this one! I was able to get it on audio and once again, stayed up too late listening to it. Bo Thorson is a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect The First Lady, Kate, while she is back in her hometown in Minnesota where her father is in the hospital after being found in his orchard with a terrible head injury. Not sure if it was an accident or an attack, the Secret Service has to follow every lead because it looks like The First Lady is in the cross hairs of more than one bad guy.

1st in series about Cork O?Connor, a troubled man who lost his job as sheriff in the town of Aurora, MN. He dives into the death of Judge Parrant and finds himself embroiled in the ?underworld? of the town that many want to stay hidden. Enjoyed alot.Kirkus: Cork O?Connor is a man beset with troubles, some of them of his own making. But he?s a bend-not-break man: an admirable man. And he needs to be, for it?s winter in hardscrabble Aurora, Minnesota. The blizzard that buries the small lakeside town also buries some ugly things with it. Like nasty secrets�and brutal murder. So here?s Cork, who used to be sheriff, who used to have a wife who loved him, who used to have a purpose to his life, sort of stumbling into situations that bewilder him to the nth. There?s the apparent suicide of Judge Parrant. Suicide? Judge Parrant? Not that cantankerous old misogynist. There?s also a missing boy, a good and responsible boy, with no reason in the world for him to have run away. Then there are the murky goings-on over at the casino, where gambling is producing so much wealth for the Native American population that they?ve begun calling it ?the new buffalo.? And finally, there?s the windigo, a spirit so malevolent that it can unnerve even those who don?t actually believe in it. Almost despite himself, Cork is soon behaving like the lawman he no longer is, looking for answers that are very hard to find. And yet he does find some. Some of those he discovers, though, he soon wishes he hadn?t. Minnesotan Krueger has a sense of place he?s plainly honed firsthand in below-zero prairie. His characters, too, sport charm and dimension, although things start to get a bit shaky toward book?s end. Still, this first-timer?s stamina and self-assurance suggest that O?Connor?s got staying power.

Continuing story with Cork O?Connor as main character-sheriff of a small town in Mn. Very enjoyable.

(2023) This book is a stand alone novel by Krueger that I found much better than the few I have read of his Cork O'Connor series. Set along the Alabaster River in Minnesota, a small town is torn apart by the death of the town bully and the many lives he has affected in 1958. World War II and WW I have also affected the town with prejudice and malice. Kirkus: Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, as it was still called in 1958) takes on new meaning for the residents of Jewel, Minnesota, when its wealthiest?and least-liked?citizen is murdered and a war veteran is suspected of the crime.

The brutish victim, Jimmy Quinn, is found floating in the Alabaster River, shotgunned and chewed up by catfish. Suspicion immediately falls on Noah Bluestone, a veteran who is doubly persecuted for being a Dakota Sioux and married to Kyoko, a Japanese survivor of Nagasaki. The sheriff, Brody Dern, a highly decorated and traumatized war veteran who spent time in a Japanese prison camp, thinks about letting whomever killed Quinn, destroyer of people?s lives, go free. Brody is having a dreamy affair with his brother?s wife while entering into a romance with the proprietor of the local cafe, a war widow with a tainted past and a teenage son with a damaged heart. Also playing a recurring role is the riverside, where a woman?s weeping voice can be heard. In the aptly named Black Earth County, stuffed as it is with current and past incidents of sexual abuse, suicides, racial discrimination, fatal diseases, and ?complications of the heart,? there is a lot to weep about. The latest stand-alone novel by the author of the acclaimed This Tender Land (2019) and the Cork O?Connor mysteries has so many people and subplots to keep track of it can?t help losing sight of some of them, including one significant character. Fans of the die-hard Minnesotan author will appreciate his evocation of the landscape and people?s connections to it. But in piercing the notion of an innocent small-town America in the 1950s, he goes way overboard.

A grim portrait of lost souls.
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023

ISBN: 9781982179212

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Atria

(1999) Corcoran gets drawn into the search for Shiloh, a recording artist who has disappeared into the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Her ?father? turns up to try to find her, seeming to be genuinely concerned. Turns out he is only concerned about the recording company Shiloh and her late mother created. He wants it and its profits only for himself, so his solution is to kill her leaving the company to him. KIRKUS: Krueger's second novel (Iron Lake, 1998) again features ex-sheriff Cork O'Connor of hardscrabble Aurora, Minnesota, and plenty of harsh weather. Here, a top-of-the-charts but depressed, ex-druggy country-western girl singer, Shiloh, disappears into the two-million acres of the Quetico-Superior Wilderness on the Canadian border. Cork, an old buddy of Shiloh's mother, whose murder remains unsolved, heads a search party that includes include two FBI agents, an ex-con, a ten-year old kid, and Shiloh's father. Permeating the tale is the spirit of the Anishinaabe Indians, while the heavy pelts on the muskrats point to a huge, bitter winter ahead. Meantime, some bad guys have tortured to death Wendell Two Knives, the Anishinaabe guide, trying to get him to tell where Shiloh has gone, since they want her just as badly as Cork's search party. Shiloh witnessed her mother's murder, then had amnesia, and through regression therapy seems to have brought up the killer. Was he her mother's lover, a Vegas casino owner named Benedetti, who now wants Shiloh dead? Does all this have to do with the Ojibwa's cash-rich Grand Casino on Iron Lake? Why was Shiloh's therapist murdered as well? Will Shiloh survive to rebuild Ozark Records into an outlet for indigenous music? Cork remains a spritely, intriguing hero in a world of wolves, portages, heavy weather, and worrisome humans, with a third entry on its way.Pub Date: May 11, 1999ISBN: 0-671-01698-9Page Count: 336Publisher: Pocket

This is the 6th book in the Cork O’Connor series. Its a continuation of the preceding one & probably should be a single book....except for the publisher, I imagine! It's pretty exciting and it's readable. It's got some cool characters, including one bad ass ex-FBI lady. I wondered about the introduction of a cougar in the early stages of the listen; then it became clear at the end. Fun read, on to #7.

Less a mystery and more an exploration of grace and human frailty.

I first heard of William Kent Krueger within days of moving to Minnesota this past summer. He seemed to be a local bestseller, greatly respected. A local book club is reading Ordinary Grace; I jumped at the chance to give Krueger a try. All I can is... wow. This man can write. This novel is like a darker, Minnesota-flavored To Kill a Mockingbird, a coming-of-age set in a turbulent 1961. The prose is art. I don't normally read books in this vein, but it hooked me and I had to read through in about a day. Tragedy piles upon tragedy. The only negative I can cite is that I predicted the guilty parties of certain things much earlier on, but the way things played out still came as a surprise.

Geez, the action never stops in this book. Cork's family is in the middle of the drama once again. Good read, but I'm emotionally drained right now (just finished it!)

I gave the audio a full hour, hoping that I'd reach that magical point where you just fall into the story and thoughts about how much longer it was going to go on stop intruding on your consciousness, but it never did. So I finally gave up and moved on to the next book.

Audiobook, picked up on a whim at an Audible $5 sale. Rich Orlow's narration was okay.