Customer Reviews

Thunder Bay: A Cork O'Connor Mystery (Cork O'Connor Mysteries)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First Sentence: The promise, as I remember it, happened this way.

Cork O'Conner has his PI license and is back in his home of Aurora, Minnesota when he learns that his good friend, Henry Meloux, is in the hospital. Henry, an Ojebwe healer, shows Cork an old watch containing the picture of a woman, reveals he had a son by this woman, over 70-years ago, and asks Cork to find him. The trail leads Cork to a Hughes-type recluse on a private island with a guard who later tries to kill Cork. The challenge is to get Henry to his son and keep them both alive so Cork can deal with his own family issues.

Krueger is back in form and Cork is back where he should be as well. The middle third of the book focuses on Henry's past, but that adds dimension to the story rather than detracts from it. Henry has always been an intriguing character and I enjoyed learning his story. Krueger still knows how to build suspense and write a thoroughly engrossing story.

I always feel like I've just returned from a visit to Northern Minnesota when I finish a Cork O'Connor book.

Loved Thunder Bay! Sat down to read for awhile yesterday evening and read the entire book from cover to cover before heading for bed.

WKK's character descriptions are so good I feel that I know these people -I'm not just reading about them. His descriptions of the North Woods make me feel like I'm on that trail, in that canoe, climbing that rocky cliff, driving down that dusy road!

Really, really liked reading Henry's story. I've always loved Henry, now I feel like I know him.

I always look forward to the next book - they just keep getting better and better - and hope that WKK continues to write about Cork and his family for many years to come.

Full disclosure here; Krueger and I often travel together, we're friends and I'm a great admirer of his writing. I'm talking about the award winning Cork O'Connor series, of which this is the sixth. So, readers of this review should be forewarned.

This is a dynamite novel, although not as powerful, perhaps as the previous Mercy Falls. In this latest, the author has reconnected Cork to his family and his roots, that is, Aurora Minnesota, somewhere up in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. He's trying to leave law enforcement to others, organizing a small-town business as a restraunteer in the summer with a little private snooping on the side and in the slow months.

Of course, old friends present new challenges. Henry Meloux, long-time friend, resident Ojibwe medicine man of uncertain age is hospitalized with what appears to be serious heart trouble. Near death, Meloux prevails on Cork to try to find Meloux's son, whom no one in Aurora or on the Reservation had known existed.

So what we have here is a moving and sensitive tale of youthful love, lust and loss in which Krueger ably examines racial, class and generational conflicts. He does so within the fabric of a swiftly paced, rousing adventure that spans international boundaries and several decades. The novel is competently written and the themes of a man searching for another's offspring play out effectively against his own family relationships.

After reading the dismal, banal and dreary RED KNIFE by WKK I am trying to find something good by this author. Thunder Bay starts out strong. The prose is crisp, lyrical and taut. The secret past of the old medicine man is intriguing. The Howard Hughes like wacko billionaire, recluse is a bit flat; but the rich wacko does manage to project an aura of evil, malevolence, and vengeful violence thus laying the foundation for the plot. The domestic back dialogue is a bit mundane-- daughters abortions, fried bologna sandwiches , flies on the screens, and the look of Cork's wifes panties and bra, etc. Also, this work could use an editor with a college degree. Author uses "incidences(sic)" when he means incidents. At page 100 I am hopeful that THUNDER BAY will be worth reading. So from p 125 to p250 WKK digresses 60 years and tells the story of the shaman Henry Meloux. This story is like a long flash back. It is well written; taut, spare, and with Zane Gray classic western prose. At page 250 I am anxious to see if this unusual narrative technique can be integrated into this book as a whole. Well the rest is a not bad shoot 'em up north of the border. A kind of homage along the theme of Caine and Abel. However, the domestic chatter patter centers around abortions and miscarriages which always makes for a dreary pot-boiler.

I'd read the previous stories in this series and, most of the way through the novel, felt that this was gong to be one of the better ones. Unfortunately that feeling ended as the novel neared its end, when an interesting new character was killed-off, and a messy family situation was resolved way too easily.
[Spoiler alert: What?? He killed off Trinky? What the h*** for? Why did this character have to die? Her death served no purpose, other than perhaps to let the author pat himself on the back for avoiding a 'happy ending'. Is the author worried that he might not be considered a 'serious' writer. Pahh. Instead he commits an even worse sin by conveniently letting the daughter's unwanted pregancy end in a miscarriage. Ohh, puh-lease!]

Besides all of this, where is the storyline in which Cork has to deal with the rape of his wife that had recently occurred? He goes to 'Copper River' briefly and when he gets back, the rape just gets forgotten? No counseling? No grief? No emotional or medical complications?

So to recap: although this was an interesting book, it failed to deal with one major issue from a previous book and it had a very disappointing finish. So, I'm not sure I'll even bother continuing with the series.

Thunder Bay is another good read in Cork O'Conner series, have read all William Kent Kruger Cork O'Conner series and enjoyed them all.

Corcoran O'Conner is facing parallel situations: in both of them, there is the old story of `boy meets girl - they fall in love - and a baby ensues' However, the differences between them are that one situation took place 70+ years ago between his adopted `uncle' while the other is taking place right now and involves his daughter. In addition to balancing these two, he is also balancing his life between his hamburger stand in the north woods of Minnesota, his past life as the local sheriff, and his wife's career as a lawyer.

This is a mystery thriller so we quickly get drawn into the affairs of his 90+ year old `uncle' (Henry Meloux) and only get occasional glimpses into the current affairs of his daughter and her boyfriend. Meloux has been a father figure to Cork, and so when Meloux is admitted to the hospital because of unspecified problems, Cork rushes over to be told that he needs to find Meloux's son. Cork is given a vague location of somewhere in Canada, and a gold watch that has a picture of a woman in it. Meloux tells his story to Cork and it is a love affair that blossomed briefly between Meloux and a young woman named Maria in the far Canadian woods as Maria's father and an associate searched for gold. When Maria's father finds out about the love affair, he is furious and that is the last that Henry sees or hears of Maria. However, now Meloux has visions that tell him that he had a son by Maria and that son needs his help.

As contrived as this plot may seem, the author manages to pull it off by having his laconic hero start investigating and unravel the story and what transpired in the 73 years between the love affair and the current situation. There are plenty of interesting twists and turns to this story as there are plots within the plot and each of the characters seems to have a double life going on. Nothing is as straightforward as it seems and it is no surprise that many of the people we meet have hidden agendas and follows their own paths.

I was struck by a couple of ironies that bear mention: the first is that when Cork goes to Canada on his last visit, he brings a rifle and comments on how sensible the Canadians are about firearms - they dislike them. However, the final part of the story is an orgy of violence and bloodletting where each actor has hand guns, rifles, and ammunition galore. The body count gets as high as five people in one wild shooting spree - in Canada! The second main irony is that when Henry tells his story of how he met Maria he is airlifted to the Canadian north. In a seaplane. He has no trouble recounting how he pulled on the propeller to start the motor - not once, but twice. However, given the timelines of Henry's life, that must have taken place in the 1920's which did not have too many people flying around in seaplanes! Let alone own one!!

Putting these ironies aside as minor issues, I enjoyed reading this book and thought that the plot was reasonable, reasonably complex, and that the way it ended was acceptably heartwarming. This is clearly part of a series of mysteries or thrillers featuring O'Connor but it can be read as a stand alone book with no problems. I enjoyed this book and hope you will as well.

Can't wait until September when his new book comes out. His books get better and better, being from MN and having traveled up the north shore to Thunder Bay it was so exciting to read about things we had seen. You won't regret reading any of his books

In his retirement from the sheriff's department, Cork O'Connor runs a lakeside snack shack and enjoys a quiet life in Aurora, Minnesota. But he can't sell enough fries to send his older daughter Jenny to college next fall, and he's obtained his private investigators license to supplement the family bank account. Jenny's intense romance with Sean concerns both Cork and his wife Jo, and it turns out they have reason to be worried.

But Cork hasn't the luxury to deal with Jenny's tragedy head on, because of the trouble that comes to him. Henry Meloux, an ancient Ojibwe medicine man whom Cork has known and revered for 40 years, enters the hospital with chest pain. When Cork rushes to see him, Henry has a request: find the son no one knew he had, a son who Henry has never even met, a son whose name he doesn't even know. All Cork has to go on is the mother's name, Henry's suspicion that the son is somewhere near Ontario, Canada, and a gold pocket watch with the woman's picture.

Thus begins a quest that takes us deeply into Henry's story --- the story of a young Ojibwe orphan, conscripted into an American Indian school, forbidden to speak his own language and forced into labor on a farm; the story of how this young man escapes and learns from his uncle to live off the land; and the story of how he meets Maria Lima deep in the Canadian wilderness, an impetuous and intelligent Cuban beauty traveling with her father, one of two gold prospectors, for whom Henry serves as a guide. Violence and greed separate Henry and Maria, but not before they fall deeply in love.

Now, 70 years later, Henry must bear the news that Maria married the other prospector, Leonard Wellington. Yet she named her first son, who was born only two months after their marriage, Henry. When Cork finds the grown-up Henry, a Howard Hughes-style recluse on an island up in Thunder Bay, his hopes for organizing a reunion between father and son fade. The man is a fanatic. He's not interested in entertaining the notion that his father was an "Indian buck." But back home in Minnesota, Henry's heart problems vanish now that he knows his son is alive and needs him. He insists that Cork take him to Canada, and Cork, because he owes so much to Henry, cannot say no.

It's an exciting and gripping story, and as a bonus, the characterization and writing transcend the usual standards of genre fiction. Krueger conveys much through his use of vivid detail. Here's his description of Henry Wellington's bodyguard: "I saw that he was hard all over, well muscled, with a broad chest, narrow waist, thick arms, and a neck like a section of concrete pillar. He wore sunglasses and didn't remove them. I saw myself small, approaching in their reflection." To add to the menace, when they arrive in Wellington's chamber, the television is showing an open heart surgery. "The bloody hands on the television gripped the heart, and I was afraid maybe they were going to pull it out of the body. The screen went black. I didn't mind."

And yet, the novel is about more than greed, betrayal and suspense. It's about relationships --- between father and son, and between father and daughter. And it is here that Krueger shines. When Henry finally sees his son, Cork notes the old man's uncertainty. "To be a son, to be a father, these things were more than just a blood tie. Maybe that's what the hesitation was about. Did the relationship matter if, in the end, Wellington didn't give a damn?"

The story of Cork and his own family's crisis makes a nice counterpoint to the mystery of Henry Meloux, and Krueger juggles them well. For a "thriller" THUNDER BAY has uncommonly profound, mature and moving things to say about love. You will burn through this book, relishing the twists and turns. But perhaps, if you're like this jaded reviewer, the biggest surprise will be your leaky eyes on the final page.

--- Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman Nicol

I'm new to Mr. Krueger's work but the title really jumped out at me and I had to get it - I live in Thunder Bay, as it happens. I really enjoy series with recurring characters (i.e., The Kellermans, Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Saunders, Sandra Brown, JD Robb etc.) and, although "Thunder Bay" works perfectly as a stand-alone novel, I can't wait to get to know Cork, Jo, Annie, Jennie, Wally and everyone better and will be stocking up on Mr. Krueger's previous (and future!)offerings.

I've never read a book set at least partially in my hometown before, probably because there aren't any/many others. He got it exactly right and it was, for lack of a better descriptor, SO COOL to be reading a passage and say "Yup. I know exactly where he means. I've stood in that exact spot. They have great ice cream."