Tamarack County

Minnesota’s haunting Northwoods provide the backdrop for bestseller Krueger’s 13th Cork O’Connor novel (after 2012’s Trickster’s Point), a winter’s tale that will both break and warm the reader’s heart. Marsha Dross, the Tamarack County sheriff who used to be O’Connor’s deputy, calls on the former lawman, now a PI, for help in finding Evelyn Carter, the wife of a retired judge. A snowmobiler found Carter’s car abandoned on a remote road in a blizzard. The case soon involves the widowed O’Connor’s daughters, Jenny and Anne, and his son, Stephen. Anne is deeply troubled after coming home early from the convent she had hoped to join, and Stephen, gifted with his part-Ojibwe mysticism, envisions a malignant cannibal spirit stalking the O’Connors and their loved ones. Krueger’s evident empathy for the Ojibwe and their traditions and values blends seamlessly with horrific violence played out against O’Connor’s struggles to heal his family’s wounds—and his own. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary Associates. (Aug.)