Book Report: Purgatory Ridge

8. William Kent Krueger, Purgatory Ridge (2001) (4/3/26)

Book #3 in the Cork O'Connor series (my reports on the first two are here and here), about an ex-sheriff in the small northern Minnesota town of Aurora. Cork is half Ojibwe, and the town is cheek by jowl with an Indian reservation, so some of the plot elements tie in with the cultural tensions following an explosion at a lumber mill in which a Native elder is killed. Accident? eco-terror? What about the nearby stand of white pines: who should have access, those who revere the Old Grandfathers, as the trees are known, as sacred, or the owner of the lumber mill, Karl Lindstrom, who after all provides employment to a good number of townsfolk? 

The book opens, however, with a twelve-year-old incident on Lake Superior when, in a violent storm, an ore carrier sinks and all but one aboard die. The one who survives, half-Native John LePere, has been a wreck ever since, mourning his lost younger brother and eking out a living as a janitor at the local Indian casino. And then Lindstrom builds a fancy house on the inlet across from John's cabin. His wife happens to be the heiress of the shipping line whose ore carrier sank. John's resentment, and pain over his brother's death, only grow. And then he meets a man who's (obviously) got things on his mind other than finding personal peace—like, shaking things up, and maybe getting his hands on vast amounts of money.

In the midst of all this, Cork is treading a tender line as he reunites, after mutual extramarital affairs, with his wife, Jo, a lawyer who represents, among others, the local Natives. She gets drawn into the lumber mill explosion, and Cork tags along. Cork bumps up against a few eco-warriors, and wonders what their involvement in the incident might be. He can't seem to keep his nose out of all the goings-on. And as he is the former sheriff, the various authorities—current sheriff, FBI, the state version of the FBI, etc.—let him keep nosing around.

Then Jo and their son, Stevie, are kidnapped, along with the heiress and her son. It's about here, halfway through, that the book becomes, as they say, unputdownable. And there is where I'll stop with the summary. Even my summary so far is sketchy at best—though I bet you can guess who might be behind the kidnapping. It's a pretty good book, and the dénouement did surprise me (not that I consider it convincing, but heck, it's genre fiction, not real life). 

I think now that I'll be giving Krueger a rest for a while. Then again, I do find it hard to resist a good thriller, and the three so far qualify. We'll see. The next one's called Blood Hollow, so if I continue on my alphabetical pattern at the present pace, it'll be up in, oh, five months. But maybe I'll find something more compelling for B. It'll probably depend on how demanding A was . . . 

And now, on to Q! Which I thought I'd skip, but then, scanning my shelves for an R book, what should jump up and wave its arms but a book of short stories, The Question of Bruno. My decision has been made. (I do love this method of choosing what to read next. And if whatever book lands in my hands just doesn't engage me, onto the discard pile it goes, and off I go in search of an alternative. If Bruno proves unsatisfying, I will be skipping Q. But here's hoping.)