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.