cover image Thunder Bay: A Cork O'Connor Mystery

Thunder Bay: A Cork O'Connor Mystery

William Kent Krueger, . . Atria, $24 (280pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-7841-6

The deftly plotted seventh Cork O'Connor novel represents a return to top form for Anthony-winner Krueger after 2006's disappointing Copper River . Henry Meloux asks Cork, who's now working as a part-time PI in his hometown of Aurora, Minn., to find a son the aged Ojibwe healer has never met from a relationship with a white woman, Maria Lima, “seventy-three winters” earlier. Armed with just two clues, a location in Canada and a gold watch with a picture of Maria, O'Connor soon finds the son, a retired mining entrepreneur, but arranging a meeting between son and father proves to be a challenging and surprisingly dangerous task. The book's middle third focuses on Meloux's past: how he became a guide for white men looking for gold in Canada, how he met and fell in love with one of their daughters, and the events that separated the young lovers. Despite the preponderance of back story, the action builds to a violent and satisfying denouement. (July)