Lightning Strike

 By William Kent Krueger

Atria     2021

400 pages     Thriller

 Let me just say at the outset that I love anything by William Kent Krueger, and its not just because he writes about Northern Minnesota, my home turf. The protagonist in his mystery series, Cork O’Connor, is a skilled detective, and a former sheriff in the same community that his father Liam O’Connor served as sheriff. Krueger does a great job laying plot groundwork and creating the setting. His characters are realistic, recognizable, and in most cases, redemptive.

Lightning Strike is a prequel to the Cork O’Connor series. Cork is 12 years old, a product of the Aurora community. He is one quarter Ojibwe on his mother’s side, so he is particularly attuned to the native community; his grandmother lives in the community; and he has several friends who are Ojibwe. Liam, his dad, while no stranger to the native community, is not particularly trusted as the sheriff, even though he has interactions every day within the community. He is an Irish-American transplant from Chicago, and therefore an outlier. Cork's grandmother, on the other hand, is one of the matriarch's of the Ojibwe community.

The plot begins when Cork and a friend are hiking near Iron Lake in the Superior National Forest when they make a horrifying discovery. One of the community elders, Big John Manydeeds is hanging from a tree at Lightning Strike, a clearing where Cork and his friends often hang out. The native community doesn’t believe that Manydeeds could possibly have committed suicide, and Liam comes to believe that it was a homicide. A cryptic note at the murder scene and Cork’s insistence that he help his dad with the case keep away the rush to judgement that Liam might have initially considered.

I loved how Krueger created the character of 12-year-old Cork. Like most boys his age, he hangs out with his buddies, delivers his newspapers, and maintains his natural curiosity. Every parent of boys can identify with Cork, his parents, and his grandmother as they deal with this pre-adolescent detective. He and his friends are haunted by the specter of Manydeeds hanging in the tree, and they set out to help Liam solve the crime. Because they know the streams leading into Iron Lake from Boy Scouts, they know that Manydeeds knew the streams as well as they do. On one excursion, the boys find Manydeeds’ canoe in one of the streams leading into the big lake, and they know that they are on the right track to solving the crime. On the other hand, Krueger does not glorify the boys and their detective skills; they are not the Hardy Boys.

Like he did in This Tender Land, Krueger explores the complexity of the white community’s relationship with the Native community. I appreciated this so much. One reviewer says that he “shows rather than tells why with a subtle but unflinching touch.” Additionally, Cork is growing in his understanding of his own relationship to the Ojibwe community, what that means, and what his response and responsibility should be. At the same time, I could relate to the communities and the scenery of the region. It is a unique Minnesota spot.

Can you read Lightning Strike without having read any of the other eighteen Cork O’Connor detective books? I think so. I have read several of them, including Manitou Canyon, which I reviewed in 2016. Krueger believes that Lightning Strike is the perfect starting point. He says, “I love that this look at Cork has allowed me to explore the complex relationship between father and son, so important in shaping Cork into the man who occupies center stage in the series.”

 I highly recommend Krueger’s novels. If you haven’t read any of them, start now. Here is his website.

 

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

By Kim Michele Richardson

Sourcebooks     2019

308 pages     Literary

The most important aspect of an historical novel is the research that goes into it. Richardson has done an incredible job in creating an historical novel that is both creative and meticulously researched. It is the story of a young woman in 1930s Kentucky Appalachia. My book club read it this month and we had a lively discussion last week.

Cussy Mary, a young single woman, lives in the hills and hollers of Kentucky during the 1930s. She has applied and been accepted as a pack horse librarian, which was a job for women, sponsored by the WPA. Her job is to deliver books by horseback to the people on an established route in her mountain neighborhood. She knows her readers well and works very hard to find the materials that her clients want—everything from the classics to magazines to newspapers, many weeks old by the time they get to Cussy. She makes her way through the mountains on a mule named Junia, who is both her protector and best friend as well as the carrier of the library materials Cussy carries.

What distinguishes Cussy Mary from other young women of the area is her color. She is one of the last of the Blue People of Kentucky. This was a clan of blue-tinged people that had populated the area for several generations. They have hidden in the hills because they have been ridiculed and shunned and classified as inbreds, which they were not. Thank goodness for Google, because I had never heard of the blue people, but when I read up on it, I discovered that this aspect of the story line was remarkably true.

It would appear that Cussy (or Bluet, as she was called by her clients) had more than three strikes against her, but she is strong and feisty, and she prevails. She loves her job and takes pride in the help that she offers her clients. People rely on her to read stories to them, bring them news from the outside world, and even provide food if necessary. Her work is a testament to the power of reading and books.

There’s a lot of heartbreak in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, not just for Cussy Mary and her father, a miner, but also for the people in the hills. The description of life is remarkable, thanks to the skilled writing of Richardson. Here is one paragraph. “I found the tiny cabin stitched into a mountain, tarred with black pine and stingy sunlight. In the yard, two crows drank from mud puddles. Overhead, more cawed before dropping down to scar the yard. Two sick chickens peeked around the corner of the cabin, their combs and wattles festered with the fowl pox. A rawboned dog dozed on the crumbling porch. Junia snorted, and the pup raised its mangy body and flattened its flea-bitten ears before slinking off.” Inside, Cussy finds her favorite child client, Henry, and his siblings suffering from pellagra, and Henry is dying.

One reviewer says that Richardson doesn’t “pull punches when it comes to describing the hardscrabble lives of the hill people.” Yet, I considered the descriptions to be fairly realistic, contrasted, as they were, with great moments of hope and kindness. I do have to say that the ending is quite abrupt, and we are not allowed enough time to enjoy the happiness that Cussy Mary finds as she discovers true love and her life moves on to another level. The only weakness I found in a totally engrossing book.

This is a terrific review in bookreporter.com.  Kim Michele Richardson’s website. It looks like she has a follow-up book about Cussy’s daughter, Honey, called The Book Woman’s Daughter. It arrives next May.

I can highly recommend The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. I especially enjoyed the pictures of the Kentucky Pack Horse librarians that come at the end of the book.