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Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries)
 
 
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Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) [Hardcover]

William Kent Krueger (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

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Featured Author: William Kent Krueger
Read an excerpt from William Kent Krueger's Heaven's Keep, and explore more from the bestselling author at Amazon's William Kent Krueger Page [PDF].

Book Description

Cork O'Connor Mysteries September 1, 2009

You can’t keep Cork down, and in the next riveting novel in William Kent Krueger’s award-winning mystery series, Cork O’Connor again rises to the top as he investigates the disappearance of his beloved wife.

When a charter plane carrying Cork O’Connor’s wife, Jo, goes missing in a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies, Cork must accept the terrible truth that his wife is gone forever. But is she? In Heaven’s Keep, celebrated author William Kent Krueger puts his intrepid hero through the most harrowing mission of his life. After many days filled with grief, two women show up at Cork’s doorstep with evidence that the pilot of Jo’s plane was not the man he claimed to be. It may not be definitive proof, but it’s a ray of light in the darkness surrounding Cork’s loss. Agreeing to investigate, he travels to Wyoming where he battles the interference of forces determined to throw Cork off the trail—permanently. At the center of all the danger and deception lies the possibility that Jo is not really dead and that, somewhere along the labyrinthine path of his search, Cork will find her alive and waiting for him. With deft plotting and writing that satisfies as much as it thrills, Heaven’s Keep gives readers an adventure not soon forgotten.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Book Description
When a charter plane carrying Cork O'Connor's wife, Jo, goes missing in a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies, Cork must accept the terrible truth that his wife is gone forever. But is she? In Heaven's Keep, celebrated author William Kent Krueger puts his intrepid hero through the most harrowing mission of his life.

Months after the tragedy, two women show up on Cork's doorstep with evidence that the pilot of Jo's plane was not the man he claimed to be. It may not be definitive proof, but it's a ray of light in the darkness surrounding Cork's loss. Agreeing to investigate, he travels to Wyoming, where he battles the interference of local law enforcement who may be on the take, the open hostility of the Northern Arapaho, who have much to lose if the truth is known, and the continuing attempts on his life by assassins who shadow his every move.

At the center of all the danger and deception lies the possibility that Jo's disappearance was not the end of her, that somewhere along the labyrinthine path of his search, maybe even in the broad shadow of Heaven's Keep itself, Cork will find her alive and waiting for him.



Amazon Exclusive: Vince Flynn Reviews Heaven's Keep

Vince Flynn's writing career began in 1998, upon the publication of his first novel--and first bestseller--Term Limits. Since then, he has written ten political thrillers that feature renegade CIA operative Mitch Rapp. His two most recent novels, Protect and Defend and Extreme Measures, were both #1 New York Times bestsellers. His next book, Pursuit of Honor, will be published by Atria in October. He, like William Kent Krueger, has made his home in the Twin Cities, a longtime urban sanctuary for writers of every genre. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Heaven's Keep.

William Kent Krueger is the real deal. A dedicated wordsmith, you can find him most days at the St. Clair Broiler in St. Paul, hunched over a notebook, handwriting his latest masterpiece. Kent has written nine novels featuring half-Irish, half-Native American private detective Corcoran O'Connor. Every one of them, from Iron Lake to Heaven's Keep, is brimming with suspense and taps into our darkest fear: the inevitability that our loved ones will be taken from us.

Heaven's Keep begins with a plane crash. Over the imposing fortress of the Wyoming Rockies, a small charter plane carrying Jo, Cork's wife and mother of their three children, seemingly disappears into thin air. Cork travels to Casper to investigate, his thirteen-year-old son Stephen in tow, and is met with forbiddingly frozen terrain and the kind of weather a polar bear would hesitate to journey into. Despite help from local authorities and search crews, no sign of Jo's plane is found, leaving Cork and his family nothing to do but mourn her death.

Six months pass, the spring thaw has begun, and Cork has done his best as a single father, when the wife of the man who owned and flew the plane calls on Cork's investigative skills. An unlawful death suit has been filed against her husband's estate, charging that he had gotten drunk the night before the flight disappeared and was too hungover to navigate his way through the storm. The widow and her attorney have credible evidence suggesting her husband didn't even fly the plane. But if he didn't, who did? And where did they take Jo?

Cork returns to Wyoming just as the snows in the mountains are receding. This time, he's not only a grieving husband but a hired investigator, here to crack the apparent code of silence surrounding the missing plane. And this time, the locals aren't so welcoming. Cork finds himself going head-to-head with a shady sheriff and threats from the Northern Arapaho, who are somehow involved in the tragedy. In the meantime, he has become the target of some brutal assassins hired to put his curiosity permanently to rest.

What keeps Cork going every day, knowing it could be his last, is the thought that Jo might not have been taken from him just yet--that she could, in fact, be waiting for him in the hard heart of Heaven's Keep.

Heaven's Keep has it all. A mystery that will have you stumped, a fascinating look at the traditions, folklore, and current-day politics of Native Americans, and a drama that will have you embracing your loved ones at the close of each and every chapter. It is a nail-biting suspense from a writer soon to be on the top of everyone's must-read list. --Vince Flynn




Review

"One of today's automatic buy-today-read-tonight series...thoughtful but suspenseful, fast but lasting, contemporary but strangely timeless. Krueger hits the sweet spot every time." -- Lee Child

"A powerful crime writer at the top of his game." -- David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Shimmer

"There's a reason why William Kent Krueger is known as a writer's writer. His stories are works of art, literary wonders that beautifully capture a sense of place while they deliver a powerful emotional punch." -- Tess Gerritsen

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Atria Books; FIRST ATRIA edition (September 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1416556761
  • ISBN-13: 978-1416556763
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For more than two decades, William Kent Krueger has made his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and two children. His Cork O'Connor novels, Iron Lake (winner of the 1998 Anthony Award for Best First Novel and the Barry Award), Boundary Waters, Purgatory Ridge, Blood Hollow (winner of the 2004 Anthony Award for Best Novel), Mercy Falls (winner of the 2005 Anthony Award for Best Novel), Copper River (winner of a 2006 Minnesota Book Award) and Thunder Bay (winner of the 2007 Minnesota Book Award for Best Genre Fiction), as well as the political thriller The Devil's Bed, are available from Atria Books. Visit his website at www.williamkentkrueger.com.

 

Customer Reviews

58 Reviews
5 star:
 (29)
4 star:
 (16)
3 star:
 (8)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (58 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good new installment in the series, September 5, 2009
This review is from: Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Opinion Only - No Story Spoilers

This is the ninth novel in the Cork O'Connor series, and wouldn't be the best starting point for new readers into the series. This book takes a different approach than his others do and depends (to a point) on the reader being familiar with the characters already. Having read the series to date, I really enjoyed the story, and read it in two days. The first half of the book has little character development (ninth book in the series), and jumps right into the story of the disappearance of and search for Jo O'Connor and others, and Cork's coming to terms with the situation. The second part of the book is more like the rest of the series. Overall, I found it captivating and an easy read that became hard to put down.

I had the feeling that Thunder Bay would be the last in the Cork O'Connor series after completing it and was pleasantly surprised by the release of the next book, Red Knife, which I really enjoyed as well. This latest turn in Heaven's Keep may mark the end, or it may in fact mark a turning point toward a new direction in a series that might otherwise be limited by geographic location and relative isolation.

William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor series was recommended to me by Amazon about the time that Blood Hollow came out, because I had enjoyed series novels by Steve Hamilton and C.J.Box. After purchasing and enjoying Iron Lake, I ordered the next three novels in the series and enjoyed each book better than the last, and felt that WKK's writing improved with each one. Each story is built slightly off the last one, as series are prone to do, while still remaining fresh and captivating. While sometimes series characters tend towards unbelievability in terms of the number and type of events over the entire series, Krueger stays on the inside of this curve (and we as readers should generally allow a bit of flexibility -who wants to read books about a 32 year veteran cop who never even had cause to unholster his weapon?).

Good to read on their own, but much better to read in order, the Cork O'Connor series is:
Heavens Keep - 2009
Red Knife - 2008
Thunder bay - 2007
Copper River - 2006
Mercy Falls - 2005
Blood Hollow - 2004
Purgatory Ridge - 2001
Boundary Waters - 1999
Iron Lake - 1998
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Indian visions and detective work in search for a missing plane, September 1, 2009
This review is from: Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) (Hardcover)
She left him angry. And when her flight went down somewhere over Wyoming, all private detective Cork O'Connor could think was that he should have apologized, said something...anything but let their last words be those of love.

In the days immediately following the plane's disappearance, Cork and his teenage son, Stephen, head up to the desolation of Heaven's Keep, Wyoming where the FAA received the doomed plane's last message. With storms coming, and with the huge desolation of snow-covered mountain and Indian reservation, their effort to find Jo is practically hopeless. Still, they're encouraged by the word that a group of snowmobilers had heard a low-flying plane, and that a sometimes drunk Indian had a vision of the plane landing in what looked like a baby's crib.

Cork's hopes fade as more storms set in. Even if Jo had survived the landing, Wyoming's brutal winter would certainly have been fatal. But when he learns that the supposed pilot might not have been the man he was supposed to be, Cork wonders if bad weather and bad luck really explained his wife's disappearance. Could some darker cause related to human greed be responsible? He swears he'll find out, but in a world of brutal poverty, finding anyone to trust becomes dangerous indeed.

Author William Kent Krueger writes convincingly of the desolation of Indian country, of the poverty that afflicts reservation Indians, and of the mixed blessing that gambling casinos, with their addictions and connections to organized crimes, can bring. The story really takes two parts connected only by Cork's ongoing search for his wife--first the hunt for the plane and second, the search for the truth about the substitute pilot. From a mystery perspective, the first half is all setup. We meet the key players, learn about Cork and his problems, and stay with him as he gradually loses hope for his wife's survival. In the second half, Cork goes into detective mode, and faces threats to his life, gradually unraveling the secrets behind the loss of the small plane on which his wife, along with a group of tribal leaders, were flying.

I thought the first half went too slowly, and gave us a few too-obvious clues. In the second half, Krueger picks up the pace, delivering plenty of action. Krueger's writing is smooth and enjoyable, drawing me into the story at the same time as it played off Indian visions with modern forensic science.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Blends close-knit family and American Indian traditions with good old-fashioned sleuthing, September 14, 2009
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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Heaven's Keep: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) (Hardcover)
Cork O'Connor --- half Irish, half Ojibwe Indian --- is a private investigator in his Northern Minnesota birthplace. The former sheriff knows his neighbors and his people, and he and Jo, his attorney wife and mother of their three children, enjoy wide respect in the community. When Jo accompanies a delegation of Northern American Indian tribal officials to an important meeting in Seattle, Cork sees her off on the chartered plane at the local airport. It is the last he will see of her as the plane takes off under darkening skies and then vanishes hours later in a blinding blizzard over the Northern Rockies.

Cork and his 13-year-old son, Stephen, fly out to Western Wyoming to search in the region where the plane vanished from radar. Reports from snowmobilers of hearing a low-flying plane during the storm seemed to pinpoint the area in which searchers were gathering. Cork and Stephen join with the Owl Creek Sheriff's Department and volunteers in an air search to try to spot any sign of a downed plane. After nearly a week of flying over thousands of miles of the rugged wilderness, searchers give up as winter settles in and hopes of finding any clues dwindle. The sheriff's department is very accommodating, even flying Cork and Stephen over an area seen in a vision by a local Indian shaman.

As another heavy storm moves in, heralding the beginning of winter in the Rockies, Cork and Stephen head back home, saddened by the fact that not only their beloved Jo is dead, but that the other six passengers and pilot, some of them friends, may not be found until spring, if ever.

They start to pick up the pieces of their lives, but rumors begin that the pilot and owner of the small plane had been seen drinking heavily the night before at a local bar. By March, a lawsuit against the pilot is launched by the families of two of the men on the missing plane. The pilot's widow comes to Cork with what she thinks is evidence that the man who flew her husband's plane was not him, even though he's seen on a surveillance camera from the bar appearing to imbibe several straight shots of whiskey the night before the flight. If the pilot was not her husband, then where is he and why did he go missing that day? The investigator she hired went out to Wyoming and failed to return after asking questions of local officials.

Cork carefully examines the grainy surveillance tape the pilot's widow produces and discovers something not previously seen on there. It is enough for him to take on her case and perhaps bring some closure to what really happened to Jo and her fellow passengers on that fateful flight. The possibility that the plane didn't crash is raised along with Cork and Stephen's hopes that Jo is being held captive somewhere. They discover that some of the local Wyoming people hold title to land overlying rich oil deposits, and perhaps one of the passengers of the plane was entangled in a land deal.

Upon returning to Owl Creek, Cork finds the local sheriff's office less than cordial than their prior encounter and reluctant to expend any more manpower on the hunt for the downed plane. They vaguely remember the prior private investigator who asked a few questions, but do not know where he went after he left Owl Creek. Cork now must rely on an offer from his new business partner to put his resources to work to launch a new search for the missing plane and learn the fate of its passengers. This becomes a game of "who do you trust" as Cork looks to former acquaintances and friends for help.

HEAVEN'S KEEP is William Kent Krueger's 10th book and the ninth to feature Cork O'Connor. These novels blend a close-knit family and American Indian traditions with good old-fashioned sleuthing. Those who have followed Cork since his introduction in 1998's IRON LAKE will not be disappointed with Krueger's latest effort, and undoubtedly will look forward to a continuation of this award-winning series.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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