Red Knife

Buck Schirner, an actor with a deep, full-bodied voice, narrates Krueger's ninth novel about Minnesota private detective Cork O'Connor with a blunt, no-frills delivery. His voice is a perfect match for a cleanly written, robust adventure featuring an honorable hero of Caucasian-Ojibwe Indian heritage who keeps his human faults and strengths under wraps. As the sleuth is drawn into a series of violent events triggered by the death of a local power broker's meth-addicted daughter-including a brutal double murder, a potential race war, a looming north woods drug infestation and a school takeover by an armed student-Schirner subtly shifts his narration to fit the situation. He softens it a bit for O'Connor's sensitive probing of his suspects, but toughens up when necessary, as in the detective's violent confrontation with a group of drug dealers determined to kill or be killed. An Atria hardcover (Reviews, July 14).