Tamarack County

Starred review from June 3, 2013
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.

July 15, 2013
Minnesota private eye Cork O'Connor's 13th case is a family affair in all the worst ways. Even though he's no longer sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork is still a member of the Search and Rescue Team. So it's only natural that he'd get a call when Evelyn Carter goes missing. The Buick belonging to the 70-ish wife of irascible retired judge Ralph Carter has been found abandoned with an empty gas tank miles from her home and with no clue of what happened to her--unless you've read the first chapter and already know that she was stabbed to death in the driveway of her own home. Even as Sheriff Marsha Dross and the rest of her team are digging in every snowbank in Tamarack County for Evelyn's remains, there's a second violent attack. While Cork's teenage son Stephen is keeping company with Marlee Daychild, trying to figure out whether they're "just talking" or progressing toward other intimacies, someone cuts off the head of Dexter, the dog belonging to Marlee's uncle, RayJay Wakemup, who's about to be released from prison. (The place where Dexter's head finally turns up is one of the few surprises here.) Ignoring the bloody recent history of Tamarack County (Trickster's Point, 2012, etc.), Cork and company assume that the two incidents are related. They trace them back to the conviction 20 years ago of Cecil LaPointe for the murder of party-girl coed Karyn Bowen, a resolution that depended on Judge Carter's suppression of RayJay's exculpatory evidence. But this ancient case is much less urgent than the questions of whether Cork's daughter Annie will take her vows as a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur or yield to the embraces of teacher Skye Edwards, or what will happen between Stephen and Marlee or between Cork and Marlee's mother. Lacking mystery and low on suspense, this installment reads more like a family in extremis soap opera larded with Native American lore. Wait till next year.

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Starred review from August 1, 2013
If Krueger's publisher had released just one of the scenes in this novel set in the North Woods of Minnesota, the one in which a car spins off an icy road onto the frozen surface of Iron Lake, trapping two young people inside as the ice cracks and water rushes in, the asking price of an entire novel would have been entirely justified. But this is just one of many such scenes of hold-your-breath suspense, heightened by the isolating blizzards of a Minnesota winter and the eerie presence of a stalker. In the thirteenth in Krueger's series starring Cork O'Connor, the Tamarack County private investigator (and former sheriff) is called in to help find a misanthropic judge's wife, who has disappeared. That incident is quickly followed by the killing of a woman friend's dog, with additional evidence indicating that the woman is being stalked. O'Connor is able to trace the incidents to a cold case from more than 20 years before. Complicating matters, O'Connor's son's relationship with the embattled woman's daughter places his son in peril. Because Krueger works in the history of his characters' relationships in a clear and elegant way, this exceptionally scary suspense story will prove riveting for both newcomers to the series and readers who have followed Cork as he and his family have aged and grown.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)