Iron Lake

If you enjoy Craig Johnson, then William Kent Krueger is right up you alley. Both write the cold backcountry police procedural with folklore and the surrounding environment being as essential a character as anyone else mentioned in the storyline.

Cork O’Connor and his attorney wife Jo are in the middle of a separation due to his downward spiral after losing an election to maintain his position as sheriff. Now out of the house and trying to keep an old run down seasonal restaurant afloat, Cork receives a call from a friend that is panicked over her missing son. Of course, there is more to the story, since Paul’s last newspaper delivery was to the local judge’s home and now the judge has been found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Everyone but Cork is in a hurry to close this case, but there is something nagging at Cork. This suicide is tied up too neat and clean and that is just something that does not settle right with the ex-Sheriff in him.

Then one night it all comes to a boiling point. A Windigo is calling out names, ambitions fuel murder, secrets that should stay hidden are photographed for all to see and Cork is right there in the middle with an unlikely ally and a future that will undoubtedly be even more complicated then what he was bargaining for.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next in the series. There were a couple of loose ends left dangling and I am glad that Krueger did not wrap everything up in a neat little bow. This is a book that you have to let sit with you for a little while. You have to let the relationships float around in your brain and wonder aloud, what if or what about, before you can put the whole story to rest.

Good job Mr. Krueger.