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Mercy Falls, William Kent Krueger, Atria Books, $24.00

Mercy Falls by William Kent Krueger

This is the fifth book in William Kent Krueger's award winning and compelling Cork O'Connor mystery series, set in the Boundary Waters area of Northern Minnesota. This is one of the most beautifully written of all mystery series, his evocation of the Minnesota North Woods and the culture of the Ojibwe who live there equal to Tony Hillerman's vision of people and place in the Southwest. His character, Cork O'Connor, is half Ojibwe and half Irish, making him the classic mystery outsider, fitting in neither here nor there, and thus has a clear eyed view of every situation. Another classic element is that O'Connor fits the "white knight" model used by writers from Raymond Chandler on, but unlike many of those characters, Cork O'Connor is also grounded by relations and community, and that is illustrated no more clearly than in Mercy Falls, where Cork's commitment to his family is tested and stretched to the breaking point. Krueger even states it baldly in one of the opening segments: "his own reality lay in the details of this place, his hometown" and "there was another reality for him as well...the sound of glass shattered by a bullet capable of exploding his head like a melon." The tension of any mystery series lies in this dichotomy, I think - try as they might, it's hard for these characters to bridge the chasm between the "normal" and "violent" aspects of their lives.

Each of Krueger's books has been a little different, with continuing characters, yes, but within those boundaries, one has been a journey of emotional discovery for Cork (Iron Lake), one was a chase (Boundary Waters), one was a classic come from the past story (Purgatory Ridge) and one is a story of spirituality (Blood Hollow). Mercy Falls has a combination of all of those elements, with an emotional journey not just for Cork, but for Cork and his wife, a wonderful chase, and a revelation from the past with horrible teeth. But despite their deeper concerns these books are also all killer reads - fast paced and difficult to put down. Mercy Falls, like many good novels, starts with the routine being blown apart by the unexpected, in this case a sniper's shot at Cork's deputy out in the middle of nowhere. Cork is torn, horrified that his deputy has been shot and wanting to stay and save her, but burning to pursue the shooter. The rest of the book finds him stretched in a pretty similar way. The deputy's shooting is followed by the brutal slaying of a man who was trying to put a casino deal together with the Indian Reservation, a man who had been working with Cork's wife, Jo, a lawyer. This killing is followed by more violence directed at Cork's family, and he hustles them out of town and to - he thinks - safety.

The dead man's brother turns out to be an old boyfriend of Jo's who has never gotten over her, and Jo finds herself questioning her commitment to Cork and his dangerous world. The emotional journey of the book is the usual one of Cork's path to find the killer, but it's also the arc of Jo's realization of her love for her husband. Krueger ends the novel with a scene eerily reminiscent of the last scene in The Great Gatsby, a cliffhanger ending that will leave his readers either intensely frustrated or eager for the next novel, or both. Either way, the sting is in the tail, and the end of this book is strong and powerful. One of my customers who had recently finished Krueger's first book came in to buy the rest of the novels and to berate me about Cork's wife. I had to remind her - as did her boyfriend, apparently - that Cork isn't real. Krueger just makes you think he is.

 

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