William Kent Krueger’s Northwest Angle is the eleventh book in his Cork O’Connor series. Thanks to Sandie Herron for stepping in with a review of the audiobook for Have You Heard?

Northwest Angle
Written by William Kent Krueger
Narrated by Buck Schirner
Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 11
Unabridged Audiobook
Brilliance Audio (8/30/2011)
Listening Length:  11 hours 44 minutes
ASIN:  B005JVYVTQ

Ex-lawman Cork O’Connor has been struggling with his grief over the death of his wife Jo, so he decides that it’s time for his family to spend some time together.  Daughters Jenny and Anne, son Stephen, sister-in-law Rose and her husband Mal all join Cork on a houseboat they sail on the Lake of the Woods near the border of Canada and the United States.  Jenny’s boyfriend is joining the gang, so Cork and Jenny take a small boat and head out to pick him up.

Before they arrive, a huge derecho hits with its horizontal hurricane-force winds, knocking Cork and Jenny into the water.  Jenny is thrown near an island where she finds a trapper’s hut well stocked with everything a survivalist would need.  Checking outside the hut, she hears whimpering and finds a well-concealed Indian baby.  Inside Jenny finds his dead mother, shot in the head.  Caring for the baby and fearing the shooter’s return, she gathers supplies and flees to the other side of the island where Cork finds her.  Someone arrives in a cigarette boat and fires shots into the air and searches the island.  Are they friend or foe?  Assuming the worst, the trio slinks to another island.

Meanwhile, the others manage to find each other and save the houseboat and steer their way toward the Northwest Angle where locals help them to safe harbor.  There isn’t much of a presence of the law other than a part-time deputy.  He and several others along with Stephen go looking for Jenny and Cork who hear the boat’s engines.  With the O’Connor family reunited, there is now the issue of this motherless baby to whom Jenny has become attached.  The locals know that a man named Smalldog is suspected of smuggling through the hard-to-navigate waters in a cigarette boat.  He is also suspected of abusing his sister Lily Smalldog who was living on an island with some extremely religious folks.  Cork and the others visit that island and learn that Lily was missing.  Perhaps she was the young mother.  But why is everybody looking for the baby?  Who is he and why is his life in danger, and hence the entire O’Connor clan who has closed ranks around him?

A tense chase follows that ends at home in Tamarack County.  Not everyone survives the journey to freedom.  Important decisions need to be made that will change lives forever.  Author Kent Krueger knows just how to tweak this chase to grab the reader by the britches and not let go.  Even when the shooting stops, a new journey is just beginning. 

Northwest Angle is the eleventh in this excellent series featuring Cork O’Connor and his family.  Krueger again treats us to his lyrical descriptions of the land and the lakes and wilderness of northeastern Minnesota.  Ojibwe lore is woven into the story with ease and purpose.  Family history plays a part, too, as the O’Connor clan has gathered.  On one hand we look back, yet on the other we look forward to new destinies.  Buck Schirner again narrates with his down-to-earth timber that fits in seamlessly.  I felt a deep satisfaction upon finishing this superb mystery.