I mentioned on Thursday that I was going to visit my mother. Because I drove eight hours yesterday, I’m grateful that Sandie Herron stepped up with a review of William Kent Krueger’s audiobook, Heaven’s Keep. If you’re interested in listening to it, please pay attention to Sandies’s final note about the version she read. Thank you, Sandie.

Heaven’s Keep
Written by William Kent Krueger
Narrated by Buck Schirner
Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 9
Unabridged Audiobook
Brilliance Audio (9/2/2009)
Listening Length:  11 hours
ASIN:  B002NLSDS0

Cork O’Connor’s wife Jo, often attorney for the Ojibwe tribe outside Aurora, Minnesota, is traveling with a group of men from various tribes on their way to Seattle by way of Wyoming to discuss oversight of Indian gaming casinos.  Before leaving Minnesota, Jo and Cork had had a fight, and she’d left angry.  By the next day, both were ready to apologize, but a tremendous storm in the Rockies gets in the way, knocking Jo’s plane from the sky. 

Back home, Cork manages to find his way to Sam’s Place, the burger joint he runs in the summers, now surrounded by land owned by the Parmer Corporation that wants to develop the tract.  Cork would rather die than sell.  But they cut off his easement to Sam’s Place, cutting his business.  On this fateful day Cork meets Hugh Parmer. 

As the news arrives in Aurora that Jo’s plane is down, the family gathers.  Cork’s son Steven seems the most distraught, having had what he thinks is a vision on where his mother is.  Hugh Parmer flies Cork and Steven to Wyoming on his private jet where they join the search in progress.  The authorities are looking in the logical places while an Arapaho Indian who has had a vision has his tribe searching Heaven’s Keep, a prominent area in the mountains.  Days pass and another storm hits Wyoming.  Finally, sadly, the search is called off.

Several months later, the wife of the pilot of Jo’s plane comes to Aurora to ask Cork, the private investigator for help in clearing her husband’s name.  Initially angry as hell, Cork begins to see irregularities in what was believed to have happened.  Now friends with Cork, Hugh Parmer joins him in searching for evidence of the murder of the pilot long before another man stepped onto Jo’s plane.  Who impersonated him and why? 

What follows is a tense investigation into why Jo’s plane and the Indians on board were targeted, whether the blizzard played a part in bringing the plane down at all, and what happened to the plane after it met the earth.  Cork and Parmer follow every lead, being chased at every turn.  The last man to see Jo alive lays dying in Cork’s arms, and Cork is frantic to know what happened.

This ninth entry in the Cork O’Connor series is deeply character driven yet includes plenty of action to keep it moving from Minnesota to Wyoming and back again.  The tension as Cork chases down the truth behind his wife’s disappearance is palpable, gripping, riveting, and made this book un-put-downable. 

I chose to listen to the Brilliance Audio version of this audiobook narrated by Buck Schirner because I prefer his down-to-earth, steady voice.  Unfortunately, this is out of print.  However, Recorded Books released a version narrated by David Chandler on 11/14/19 which is easily available.