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Lightning strike book8/17/2023 ![]() Cork himself – through his mother’s lineage – is one-quarter Ojibwe, so it is no surprise that many of the novels in the series feature discussion of the racial injustices experienced by these indigenous populations and Lightning Strike is no exception. The dynamic between father and son is clearly important to William Kent Krueger and watching how that unfolds in one of the true delights of Lightning Strike.įans of the series know that this area of Minnesota is populated by many indigenous groups, mainly of the Anishinaabe Ojibwe peoples. These two parallel investigations will change all the parties involved. Being out of the watchful eye of adults allows he and his friends to begin their own amateur investigation into this man’s death, even while his father is also not sure about the claim of suicide and embarks on a more official inquiry into the case. Since it is 1963 in rural Minnesota, Cork is given more freedom than he probably would be today. However, Cork’s father Liam is the sheriff of Aurora, so he has grown up around investigations of crimes and various evidence leads Cork believes people are jumping to the wrong conclusion. Finding out more about this location throughout the book factors into the plot so that is best left for readers to discover on their own, however, it is not a spoiler to say that the novel opens with a young Cork stumbling upon a body hanging from a tree within Lightning Strike in what most will eventually assume was a suicide. Lightning Strike is an abandoned logging camp near, Aurora Minnesota with a complex and storied history. Like all the books in the Cork O’Connor series, the title of the novel comes from a very specific location. Because it is a prequel, it is also an excellent way for new readers to discover this first-class writer’s ability to impart so much wisdom with his words while also telling a gripping crime story. With his latest release, Lightning Strike, William Kent Kruger travels back to 1963 to give his loyal fans a glimpse at the origins of Cork’s sense of justice and his precarious placement in the larger society. In both his Cork O’Connor series and his stand-alone literary mysteries, location is a central focus and readers can always count on being transported. ![]() Barrowman teaches English at Alverno College in Milwaukee.When it comes to regional crime fiction, one would be hard-pressed to find a more accomplished practitioner than William Kent Krueger. ![]() As a result, the wisdom Liam seeds to Cork is compelling and complicated, and I'm so glad the author decided to share it with us.Ĭarole E. Liam walks a rocky path during most of his investigation into Big John's death, facing angry silence from the reservation, and racism from the white community against their Native American neighbors. "I know your father's heart is in the right place," says Cork's grandmother, an Anishinaabe woman, "but, in the end, he's still the arm of a system that has oppressed The People for generations." No one was looking at the death of a Native American man that hard. Everyone sees what they want to see in Big John's death - except the truth. He finally gave in to his demons, they whispered. He was driven to suicide "in the grip of booze," they proclaimed. While on a hike in the woods, a young Cork discovers Big John Manydeeds' body hanging from a tree on the precipice of Lightning Strike, a place sacred to the Anishinaabe.Īfter Big John's death, "rumors flew like harpies." Big John couldn't face his life anymore, they said. "Lightning Strike" "unravels the mystery" that was Cork's father. Liam left a "hard road map" for his son to follow yet, in many of the earlier novels Cork's choices are often held against his father's principles. ![]() After all, Liam O'Connor's legacy branches across most of the 18 books in the series. "Lightning Strike" is also Cork's father's back story. With the author's suspenseful measured pacing, his accomplished prose and his carefully crafted plot, "Lightning Strike" is Cork's creation story, his rite of passage to adulthood, unfolding during an investigation that "threatened the peace in the Connor household." The novel opens beautifully with Cork reminiscing on a bench beneath the courthouse clock that stopped when a bullet from gunfire that killed his father decades ago lodged in it. In "Lightning Strike," Krueger winds back time, literally and symbolically, to the sowing of the seeds that shaped Cork and to the first investigation when he assisted his father, then Sheriff Liam O'Connor. ![]()
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