I reviewed William Kent Krueger’s Lightning Strike when it was released because I was lucky enough to review it for Library Journal. It never hurts, though, to run another person’s review. I’m in the middle of a book, so I can talk about it tomorrow for “What Are You Reading?”, and I can review it afterward. But, I needed a fill-in. Thank you to Sandie Herron.

Lightning Strike
Written by William Kent Krueger
Series:  Cork O’Connor, Book 0
Atria Books (August 24, 2021)
Kindle edition  ASIN:  B08LDWY46J

William Kent Krueger brings us back to the summer of 1963 when his beloved series character Cork O’Connor was 12 years old.  This prequel delves into the relationship Cork has with his father Liam O’Connor along with the other major players in his life including his schoolteacher mom Colleen, his full-blood Ojibwe grandmother Dilsey, Liam’s Ojibwe friend Sam Winter Moon, and the population of Aurora, Minnesota.

The action opens when young Cork and his friend hike to a spot known as Lightning Strike where they discover Big John Manydeeds hanging from a tree.  Big John had stopped drinking years before yet there were whiskey bottles at his feet and in his home.  Was this really the suicide the white folks so easily assumed, or could it have been murder?  Liam O’Connor is sheriff, and he must follow the clues left behind, a task made more difficult by the prevalent attitudes between white and Indian.  Cork accompanies his father to visit Mide medicine man Henry Meloux who tells him to follow the crumbs, so Cork begins looking at the same clues, sometimes with his father.  They find a lighter that belonged to Duncan MacDermid, the rich owner of a mine, who has turned to drinking the same brand of whiskey found at Big John’s home.  Belligerent and prejudiced, MacDermott wants nothing to do with Indians yet more and more Liam suspects him. 

Liam’s discovery process is inhibited by white man’s law in Aurora.  He keeps everything legal yet is hindered at every turn by assumptions and prejudice.  At home, Liam finds another stumbling block in his mother-in-law Dilsey who seems to represent all Ojibwe and their attitudes against the white man.  Liam is stuck in the middle and must listen to each side.  Cork is by his side and he feels the pressure, too, from his young friends.  When Cork’s friend Billy Downwind and his mother return for Big John’s funeral, they share that the job the government had promised his father in Los Angeles under the Indian relocation act wasn’t there, and they were miserable. 

Circumstances change Liam’s focus to the case of a young Ojibwe girl who had run away from a nearby town; her body was found in the Boundary Waters and had been there since about the time Big John was killed.  And then the toxicology report on Big John came back, and everything changes. 

As Liam and Cork pursue the truth, each in their own way, Liam can see that Cork’s innocence is slipping away.  Cork’s understanding of the world was beginning to crumble, and there was nothing Liam could do.  Cork would always be of two worlds, the white and the Indian, and he would always be trying to fit them together.  Sam Winter Moon asks Cork if he knows the Ojibwe word ogichidaa, which means protector and explains to Cork that is what Liam is to his family, to the people he serves.  This part touched me most of all because in reading the entire series, adult Cork has come to accept his role as ogichidaa. 

The conclusion of Lightning Strike was unexpected, sad, yet deeply satisfying.  An excellent read.