Sandie Herron always knows when I need a few reviews to fill in because I’m on deadline. She stepped in with today’s review. You should read her concluding paragraph. Very interesting. Like my comments yesterday, her remarks are not common knowledge.

Tomorrow, I have a guest author. I hope you stop by!

Thunder Bay

Written by William Kent Krueger

Narrated by Buck Schirner

Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 7

Unabridged Audiobook

Brilliance Audio 2007 (10/10/2008)

Listening Length:  9 hours 4 minutes

Anthony Award Nominee for Best Novel, Dilys Award 

Cork O’Connor has handed in his badge as sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota, again.  He is settling into his new rhythm working at Sam’s Place, a small hut that houses a burger joint frequented by the locals.  It’s not much but it keeps him busy and happy in his home town of Aurora.  He’s worried about his daughter Jenny, who seems preoccupied with her boyfriend who has decided to skip college and travel Europe.  

Cork receives word that the Ojibwe medicine man and old friend Henry Meloux is in the hospital.  The weight on his heart is unbearable, so he sends the new private investigator Cork on a mission to find the son he fathered 73 winters ago.  Cork’s only clue is a watch Meloux has kept with the photo of a beautiful woman, the mother of his son.  Cork uses his skills on the Internet and finds a man named Henry Wellington who seems to fit the clues.  Living on a remote island in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Cork wrangles a visit only to be rejected by the strange industrialist.  

Upon returning home to Aurora, Cork finds Henry out of the hospital.  When Cork visits Henry to fill him in on his adventure, he is followed.  Sensing danger Cork returns to find that Henry has shot the intruder, the same man who claimed to be Wellington’s bodyguard.  But why does Wellington want his father dead?

What follows is a treat for fans of the character of the old medicine man Henry Meloux.  He recounts how he left the Indian boarding school to live with his uncle off the land.  The pair was then hired by two men hunting for gold.  The daughter of one of them had traveled with them, and Henry quickly falls in love.  The two men turn greedy and things go very wrong, and Henry’s love leaves without any further word.  Henry’s knowledge of his son came to him in visions, and he only wants to heal him now.

Henry insists that Cork take him to his son in Thunder Bay.  They encounter an entirely different man on this trip fraught with danger at every turn.

Kent Krueger brings us the sumptuous descriptions of the land and a way of life most of us will never experience.  His character Cork O’Connor seems more at peace and in tune with his beloved family.  There was plenty of action and suspense, but the focus of this novel was more on relationships and family and friends.

This audiobook is narrated by Buck Schirner, who narrated the earlier books in the series until David Chandler took over and reworked all the titles Schirner had done.  I enjoy Schirner’s narrations much more than Chandler’s for they seem much warmer and down to earth and fit Cork’s character better.  Therefore, this particular edition from Brilliance Audio is out of print, but the Recorded Books version with Chandler narrating is easily available.

Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger. Atria, 2009. ISBN 9781439157824 (paperback), 304p.