William Kent Krueger’s Fox Creek leads library holds throughout the country this week. It’s the nineteenth book in the Cork O’Connor series. Although I read it several months ago for Library Journal, I’m not the expert on this series that Sandie Herron is. Sandie read an early copy, and I’m happy to share her review of the book. Thank you, Sandie.

Fox Creek
Written by William Kent Krueger
Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 19
Kindle version
Atria Books (August 23, 2022)
Pages:  400
ASIN: ‎ B09JPJF3PN

PI Cork O’Connor is asked by a stranger in Aurora, Minnesota to find his wife who is supposedly exploring her Indian side with medicine man Henry Meloux.  Surreptitiously Cork takes the man’s photo and takes it out to Crow Point where Henry lives at the edge of the Boundary Waters where he meets the woman in question, Delores Morriseau.  She doesn’t know the man, so Cork heads back to investigate why Delores is being sought only to be unable to find the man claiming to be her husband anywhere.  The seeds of suspicion have been sown and very quickly we are in the chase.

Cork returns to Crow Point but finds it vacant this time with the earth carefully groomed to cover footprints yet he observes several paths converging on Crow Point.  Cork’s wife Rainy had also been there, and fear flutters inside him.  He takes seriously his role as ogichidaa, or protector of his people.  He waits, and in the morning, Anton Morriseau arrives looking for Delores.  He is her brother-in-law who brought her to Henry in the first place.  The two men determine there are three or four men following Henry and the women, and they must pursue their trail.

Rainy had foreseen trouble at the door during her sweat with Delores the previous day, and Henry’s sixth sense for trouble was also alerted, so when Cork had left the night before, the three of them also left and headed north to the Boundary Waters.  They waited at the edge of the forest and watched three big men approach and search Crow Point and then head in their direction.  Henry worked to lead the women so their trail would be hard to follow, but dark came.  They stopped for the night, as did the three men.

The story splits into four parts, one following Henry, Rainy, and Delores as they flee the men; one following the three men searching for them; one following Cork and Anton; and a fourth following Stephen, Cork’s son, who has been sent to gather information on Delores’s husband Lou.  Each is slightly off from each other time wise which makes the journey even more intense.  We watch Henry and the women flee while the men pursue them and Cork and Anton follow them.  Stephen travels to visit Lou’s family on the reservation who can only offer that he is a real estate attorney in both the US and in Canada.  Stephen travels to Lou’s home near the Twin Cities with Lou’s sister where they find trouble.

The story is complex and yet it is simple.  The tension ramps up with each switch of venue and time.  The entirety is riveting and compelling.  Each layer is added upon, as if an onion.  All the while we are privy to the gorgeous beauty of the Boundary Waters and the author’s lyrical way of describing it.  So much of the story takes place in the natural world; the reader is treated to the warmth of the sun. the chill of snow, and the stars above in a black sky.  It is the intrusion of man into nature that is the cause of the problem Lou Morriseau sought to solve.  But Cork and crew must find him first in this excellent 19^th entry of the Cork O’Connor mysteries.