If You’re Not Reading William Kent Krueger, You’re Missing A Minnesota Treasure.
There is a scene in the movie Marley and Me where Alan Arkin, as South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editor Allen Klein, tells Owen Wilson’s John Grogan that he’s “a national treasure, for God's sakes. Maybe a regional treasure.” Grogan demurs, “Well, a municipal treasure for sure.” Grogan’s memoir, of course, gleaned from his columns, provided the basis for the 2008 film.
Minnesota author William Kent Krueger, whose most recent Cork O’Connor novel Lightning Strike (Atria 2021) is one of four finalists for this year’s Minnesota Book Award (Fiction), calls himself a storyteller, rather than a writer. Whichever. He is our treasure.
Krueger famously began his storytelling journey at age 40 over coffee at the now-shuttered St. Clair Broiler at the corner of Snelling and St. Clair in St. Paul. With 21 novels under his belt, eighteen O’Connor mysteries and three stand-alones (including the absolute gem, Ordinary Grace, winner of the Edgar Book Award in 2013) and numerous New York Times bestsellers to his credit he’s been setting the bar for Minnesota fiction since 2003. His first O’Connor novel, Iron Lake, won the Minnesota Book Award in 1999. He’s won it three times since.
For the uninitiated, protagonist Cork O’Conner, a part-Irish, part-Anishinabe former Chicago cop settled in the fictional Iron-Range hamlet of Aurora, Minnesota, has served over time as the Tamarack County Sheriff, and worked as a private investigator. Aurora is nestled on the shores of Iron Lake, down the road from the Ojibwe Reservation of the same name, on the edge of the Quetico-Superior Wilderness and the Boundary Waters.
In Aurora, the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children…well, in Lightning Strike, we get to meet a few of them, including, budding-lawman Cork as a middle-schooler, as we go back in time.
Cork’s father, Liam, also a former Chicago street cop, holds the Sheriff’s office in 1963, as Cork delivers newspapers and runs with his buddies at an age where the big questions in life start to percolate for our young protagonist. Native American spirituality and Catholicism, multi-racial and blended families sometimes divided by geography, economics and other societal forces, and the duality of human existence, are heady topics for a 12-year old.
They get headier when Cork and his pals find an Ojibwe man hanging at Lightning Strike, an abandoned logging camp built on sacred ground and destroyed—some on the reservation say, not by happenstance, by “fire from the sky.”
What looks like a suicide quickly leads to serious questions. Despite his having ostensibly conquered his demons, the medical examiner finds the dead man, John Manydeeds’ blood alcohol level sky high, and there’s a stack of bottles in his cabin. The boys see strange sights that indicate that Manydeeds is not at rest, walking the “Path of Souls,” and small-town secrets come to light as sheriff Liam O’Connor seeks the truth in Aurora and on the Rez, where in 1963, running water and justice for the Anishinabe have been non-existent.
Lightning Strike is another satisfying O’Connor mystery, with beloved characters familiar to the seasoned reader including Henry Meloux the Anishinabe “Mide” (healer) and Sam Winter Moon, Liam’s close friend who sharpens him like iron sharpens iron.
But in this whodunit, Krueger has the chance to do what he does best, the coming-of-age story. Did I mention Ordinary Grace? Read that one next.
Through Cork and his friends Jorge and Billy, Krueger finds the Stand By Me magic in a young boy’s life. That time when the playground, riding your Schwinn Varsity, and collecting door-to-door for your paper route bump up against getting your head spun out by Shalimar perfume on the fascinating woman at the general store, and wondering (with horror) what happened between a runaway Native girl from Leech Lake and the men who drink at the Crooked Pine. Oh, and trying to understand what the aforementioned Path of Souls might be about. That too.
Along the way, we see the authentic beginnings of transition for Cork, with suddenly bigger things on his mind than pick-up baseball, as he “follows the crumbs” in a sometimes covert effort to help his father pursue justice in the wake of tragedy. In the crucible, he takes his first baby steps toward his father’s legacy, and his own path in life.
It’s all set against an amazing Minnesota North Country backdrop, the shimmering waters of Iron Lake, the winding Spider Creek, campsites and canoes, and high wind in the pines. Krueger has this down. A few pages in, you’ll long for heading your truck north up Highway 35 in a few months.
Yes, Krueger is one of our treasures. Even if you have not read any of the previous O’Connor books, the throw-back setting almost lets the book function as a stand-alone, and allows you to start here. Which I’d recommend anyone do.
The Minnesota Book Awards ceremony will be held April 26 at the Ordway in St. Paul. Tickets are $22.00 and available at thefriends.org/mnba.
