Access Today Iron Lake (Cork OConnor, #1) Written And Illustrated By William Kent Krueger Compiled As EText

life gives us, good or bad, we seldom deserve,

Im not usually a fan of the atmospheric, give me too much description and Im wandering the aisles of my mind, but in this book it worked.
The harsh Minnesota landscape, small town peculiarities and characters with dimension made for a welcome introduction to the world of Cork OConnor.


With a questionable suicide, a missing boy, casino shenanigans and a wicked evil spirit lurking, the elements were all here for a pageturning read and it was all of that.
But the plotting became a little flimsy the deeper we went and the explosive ending felt a bit expedient.


Always on the hunt for a straightforward mystery, I felt I should give this longrunning series a try.
I loved both Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, and while this didnt have the depth or lyricism of these standalones, this is only the first in a series withbooks to its credit so Im happy to see where we go from here.
I laughed. I cried. I was happy. I was mad. But mostly I cried. Wow what an emotional ride, The author did a great job of introducing all the characters, so much so, you loved or hated them and their roles in the story.


The author even threw in some educational items into the story, Indian lore and stories.


I would recommend giving this book and author a read, Iron Lake Cork O'Connorby William Kent Krueger Goodreads Author, David Chandler Narrator

Cork O'Connor's life seems to be at rock bottom but he's going to find that things can sink even deeper.
He shot a man in the course of doing his job as sheriff and then lost his job as sheriff.
He lost his friend and mentor, Sam, His wife has kicked him out of the family home, His oldest daughter has picked Sylvia Plath as her guide in life, He smokes too much, sleeps too little, and he's worried about how much the breakup of his marriage is hurting his children.
 

When a teenage paper boy goes missing, Cork checks the last place on his delivery route and finds a man who has been shot in the head.
It's not Cork's place to investigate and no one wants his help with anything but Cork can see that a lot is getting missed, whether due to incompetence or something else.
As Cork starts sticking his nose where it's not wanted he discovers corruption runs deep and wide in his tiny town.
Things get more dangerous and deadly but Cork isn't going to let go of the threads that he unravels, no matter how close to home things get.
I have never seen a town so ripe for blackmail!

Published May,by Recorded Books first published AugustIve become a big fan of Mr Krueger in the past year, and although this wasnt a perfect read, it was a great read!!

Our hero, slightly broken and adrift no longer the Sheriff, no longer happily married, and yet, not able to move on.


As the bodies pile up, Cork OConnor cant help himself, He knows something is wrong and he just cant stop investigating until he discovers the ugly truth behind a prominent family always choosing greed over good.
Add a new casino operated for the local
Indian tribe and youve got a great setting for murder.


An added plus is the role of the Native American reservation, nearby, Part of this book is about setting the scene for what will be a longstanding series, I enjoyed learning the Indian mythology and the call of the elusive, death bringing, mythic Windigo only adds tension to a story roiling with cultural inequities.


As always, the language is lush and Krueger never fails to paint a scenic images with his own words.
Im looking forward to getting to know Cork and his neighbors better in this new to me series!!discs.
hours

ExSheriff Cork O'Connor takes on a murder investigation that grows icier than a Minnesota lake on a winter midnight.
The new Sheriff is destroying evidence, and a paramilitary group orders Cork to forget the case, There's a small town secret with bigtime implications just below the icy surface, and Cork has turned up the heat to defrost.
After working a number of years as a Chicago cop, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor moves his wife and children back to Auora, Minnesota, his tiny home town in the northern part of the state.
His objective is to provide his family with a better quality

of life, but those dreams go up in smoke very early on, both in his professional and personal lives.


Aurora borders the Anishinaabe Indian reservation, which is enjoying a newfound prosperity as a result of the casino that has just been built on the reservation and which is practically minting money.
O'Connor is part Anishinaabe himself and would seem to be the ideal bridge between the two societies.
But when things take a decidedly bad turn, O'Connor is forced to stand in a recall election and is booted out of office.
As the book opens, he's reduced to eking out a living running a seasonal hamburger stand, Meanwhile, his wife has become a very successful attorney and the two are now estranged,

When the town's most prominent citizen, a political boss named Judge Parrant, is found dead from a shotgun blast, the new sheriff declares it a suicide, but O'Connor isn't so sure.
On the same evening that the judge dies, a young Indian boy goes missing from his paper route in a huge blizzard.
Is there a possible connection between the two events

Though no longer having any legal authority to do so, O'Connor begins investigating both developments.
This will inevitably get him in hot water with a lot of people, and in the meantime, his family situation continues to deteriorate.
O'Connor is also feeling guilty because, in the wake of the separation from his wife, he has secretly begun seeing a beautiful waitress with a hot sauna and a bad reputation.


The strength of the book lies principally in Krueger's description of the brutal winter landscape in which the story plays out.
He's also carefully researched this history of the Anishinaabe and describes their culture and society sympathetically and knowledgeably.
It's a complex story with lots of twists and turns, and a reader would be welladvised to have a hot toddy or two close at hand as a remedy for the freezing Minnesota winter.


If I have a concern about the book it lies principally with the whole idea of Cork O'Connor conducting this investigation with no legal authority to do so.
This involves him meddling in crime scenes and breaking and entering into several buildings in search of evidence, legal niceties be damned.
The new sheriff is something of a Casper Milquetoast, who occasionally warns O'Connor off, but who at other times works with him.
It's hard to imaging this scenario ever playing out in real life, and virtually all of the evidence that O'Connor gathers would be inadmissible in any court, given that it was obtained illegally and without the benefit of warrants, proper chain of custody and other such minor matters.
But if one can suspend disbelief long enough to overlook these issues, this is a very solid start to the Cork O'Connor series.

.