If you follow this blog closely, you know Sandie Herron worked her way through William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Conner series. Fortunately for all of us, she shares the reviews of the audiobooks. Today, it’s Desolation Mountain.

Desolation Mountain
Written by William Kent Krueger
Narrated by David Chandler
Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 17
Unabridged Audiobook
Recorded Books (8/21/2018)
Listening Length:  9 hours 41 minutes

Stephen O’Connor is troubled by his latest vision.  Son of former sheriff, now private investigator Cork O’Connor, the Ojibwe blood of his family is strongest in him.  Even after visiting medicine man Henry Meloux, Stephen is worried that something bad will happen in Aurora, Minnesota. 

Suddenly, a small plane crashes into the reservation land at Desolation Mountain.  Local men, both white and Indian, converge on the scene, but no survivors are found.  Before rescue can really begin, men from various agencies arrive and take over, sending the local men away.  The passengers in the plane included Senator Olympia McCarthy and her family.

Not long after and now sharing his son’s premonition of something bad coming, Cork visits the Indians first on the crash scene, but he finds both men missing and their dog killed.  He finds a woman dead at his next stop.  Being part Ojibwe himself and having been the law in these parts, Cork straddles both the white and Indian communities, moving comfortably between and among them.  In the meantime, Stephen was quietly watching the men still swarming over Desolation Mountain when he was detained by some sort of military man, Gerard, agency not given.  When Cork takes the back roads to the mountain with Stephen, they run into Bo Thorson, an ex-Secret Service agent Cork dealt with when he was sheriff (in Krueger’s standlone THE DEVIL’S BED).  Cork wonders what interests Bo is serving.  It becomes clear that whoever is searching Desolation Mountain is out for the black box.  Since the local men were on the scene first, they are the first suspects.

Returning to town, the men discover an Ojibwe couple missing, leaving an injured dog.  Seeing a pattern, the O’Connors close ranks but allow Bo Thorson in on their plans.  Bo wonders if it is Gerard’s men hunting the Indians.  Who are the players in this game afoot on Desolation Mountain?  NTSB, FBI, DoD, Homeland Security, maybe NSA?  Bo muses, “The government he’d worked for as a member of the Secret Service had never been of one mind.  It was, and clearly continued to be, a fractured, barely contained conglomerate of little kingdoms, at war with one another just as often as they were at war with the enemies who threatened.  In this isolated county in the North Country, who knew what kind of battle might result and which innocents might be caught in the crossfire?”

Author Kent Krueger has taken today’s headlines filled with violence, corruption, and greed and dropped them right into Aurora, Minnesota, just as easily as a plane with a US senator with an agenda that reached the farthest reaches of the land could drop down and crash there.  This story was all too real, too possible, too deniable.  Yet in Krueger’s hands with the fine narration by David Chandler our worst fears are allayed.  The last scene is a real keeper and one not to miss.    

Ultimately, Stephen does come to understand his vision.  Like his father, he has been searching for his place in the north woods, and he is finding his way.