Blood Hollow: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 4)

A brilliant new installment in the prize-winning Cork O'Connor series -- from the acclaimed author of The Devil's Bed and Purgatory Ridge -- immerses readers in an eerie mystery surrounding a racially charged murder in small-town Minnesota. Winner of the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, William Kent Krueger is a wholly original talent among mystery writers, managing to fuse inspired, fluid storytelling with complex, finely textured characterizations. Now, in a briskly paced novel that outstrips even its predecessors in its ability to ratchet up the suspense, Krueger takes us back to Aurora, Minnesota, where the charismatic Cork O'Connor encounters his most baffling case to date. When the corpse of a beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months after her disappearance on New Year's Eve, all evidence points to her boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon. Despite Solemn's self-incriminating decision to go into hiding, Cork O'Connor, Aurora's former sheriff, isn't about to hang the crime on the kid, whom O'Connor is convinced is innocent. In an uphill battle to clear Solemn's name, Cork encounters no shortage of adversity. Some he knows all too well -- small-town bigotry and bureaucracy foremost among them. What Cork isn't prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment hailing from his own childhood. And when Solemn reappears, claiming to have seen a vision of Jesus Christ in Blood Hollow, the mystery becomes thornier than Cork could ever have anticipated. And that's when the miracles start happening.... Praised by critics and peers alike for his bold and insightful writing, William Kent Krueger has become a master of mixing brilliant, evocative prose with stunning, nonstop suspense. Readers are sure to be riveted by his latest foray into the darkest corners of a small-town paradise and the detective who is determined to bring it all to light. From Publishers Weekly In his fourth Cork O'Connor mystery (after 2001's Purgatory Ridge), Krueger tells a chilling story with a warm heart. O'Connor, the prickly ex-sheriff of the small town of Aurora, Minn., finds himself in conflict with the new, politically motivated sheriff, Arne Soderberg, when Charlotte Kane, a beautiful but reckless teen, disappears on a drunken snowmobile ride during a New Year's Eve party. A Minnesota blizzard thwarts the search, and decidedly unspiritual O'Connor returns to civilization troubled by supernatural visions in the blinding snowfall. Kane's body doesn't surface until the spring thaw, and then questions about her death arise: the autopsy and evidence at the scene point to murder, and the most likely suspect is Solemn Winter Moon, her brooding, rebellious ex-boyfriend, a lothario from the Ojibwe reservation who has a bad reputation with the citizens of Aurora. Anti-Native prejudice gives way to spiritual controversy when Winter Moon turns himself in after claiming to have seen Christ while seeking a vision from Kitchimanidoo, the Great Spirit. Skeptical of Winter Moon's religious claims but determined to prove his innocence, O'Connor uncovers twisted family drama, frightening religious fervor and suspicious infidelities. Krueger skillfully crafts enough plot twists to keep everybody guessing through the bloody climax to the thrilling end. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist The Corcoran O'Connor series deserves a larger audience. Cork O'Connor, former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota (he now owns a burger joint called Sam's Place), is one of crime fiction's more interesting series leads, and Krueger's dead-on depiction of a rural American town is as vivid and realistic as any in the genre. This time out, Cork gets involved in the investigation of a young woman's murder and, as usual, must rely on his own investigative experience to do what the authorities can't: solve the case. But the mystery is only part of the draw here. What sets the novel (and the series) apart from the rank-and-file is the way Krueger tells the story, layering on the details, slowly revealing the relationships between characters, parceling out information a piece at a time. In this first-rate entry in an underappreciated series, Krueger does for rural Minnesota what Steven Havill does, in his Posadas County novels, for small-town New Mexico. David Pitt Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved When a high school student's body is found and her boyfriend goes missing, tough-as-nails former sheriff Cork O'Connor is forced into the center of an eerie mystery with a shocking twist in this "vivid and realistic" ( Booklist ), Anthony Award-winning novel from New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger. When the body of a beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months after her disappearance on New Year's Eve, all evidence points to her boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon. Despite Solemn's self-incriminating decision to go into hiding, Cork O'Connor isn't about to hang the crime on a kid he's convinced is innocent. In an uphill battle to clear Solemn's name, Cork encounters no shortage of adversity. Some—like bigotry and bureaucracy—he knows all too well. What Cork isn't prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment from his own childhood. And when Solemn reappears, claiming to have seen a vision of Jesus Christ in Blood Hollow, the mystery becomes thornier than Cork could ever have anticipated. And that's when the miracles start happening. Tough-as-nails former small-town sheriff Cork O'Connor is forced into the center of an eerie mystery with a shocking twist in this "vivid and realistic" ( Booklist ) Anthony Award-winning novel from critically acclaimed author William Kent Krueger. When the corpse of a beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months after her disappearance on New Year's Eve, all evidence points to her boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon. Despite Solemn's self-incriminating decision to go into hiding, Cork O'Connor, Aurora, Minnesota's former sheriff, isn't about to hang the crime on a kid he's convinced is innocent. In an uphill battle to clear Solemn's name, Cork encounters no shortage of adversity. Some - like bigotry and bureaucracy - he knows all too well. What Cork isn't prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment from his own childhood. And when Solemn reappears, claiming to have seen a vision of Jesus Christ in Blood Hollow, the mystery becomes thornier than Cork could ever have anticipated. And that's when the miracles start happening...