William Kent Krueger

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About William Kent Krueger

Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last five novels were all New York Times bestsellers.

"Ordinary Grace," his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year. "Manitou Canyon," number fifteen in his Cork O’Connor series, was released in September 2016. Visit his website at www.williamkentkrueger.com.

C. J. Box

Paul Doiron

David Baldacci

John Sandford

John Grisham

Amor Towles

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Books By William Kent Krueger

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This Tender Land: A Novel 03/09/2019

by William Kent Krueger

( 21,162 )

$9.99

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing, you’ll love This Tender Land...This story is as big-hearted as they come.” —Parade

The unforgettable story of four orphans who travel the Mississippi River on a life-changing odyssey during the Great Depression.

In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

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Iron Lake (20th Anniversary Edition): A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 1) 14/07/1999

by William Kent Krueger

( 4,695 )

$9.99

The first in the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor mystery series follows Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor as he delves into the dark side of small-town Minnesota while investigating a tangled web of corruption and danger. “A brilliant achievement, and one every crime reader and writer needs to celebrate” (Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota, is having difficulty dealing with the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children. Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, he is getting by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt.

Once a cop on Chicago’s South Side, there’s not much that can shock him. But when the town’s judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on this complicated and perplexing case of conspiracy, corruption, and a small-town secret that hits painfully close to home.

With white-knuckled suspense and unforgettable characters, Iron Lake demonstrates why “among thoughtful readers, William Kent Krueger holds a very special place in the pantheon” (C.J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

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Ordinary Grace: A Novel 26/03/2013

by William Kent Krueger

( 14,766 )

$9.99

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
WINNER OF THE 2014 DILYS AWARD
A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2013

From New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger, a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.

“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family—which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother—he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

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Boundary Waters: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 2) 11/03/2010

by William Kent Krueger

( 2,598 )

$9.99

Former small-town sheriff Cork O’Connor leads a desperate search-and-rescue mission into the unforgiving Minnesota wilderness in this “gritty, bloody adventure” (Publishers Weekly) from critically acclaimed author William Kent Krueger’s award-winning mystery series.

The Quetico-Superior Wilderness: more than two million acres of forest, white-water rapids, and uncharted islands on the Canadian/American border. Somewhere in the heart of this unforgiving territory, a young woman named Shiloh—a country-western singer at the height of her fame—has disappeared.

Her father arrives in Aurora, Minnesota, to hire Cork O’Connor to find his daughter. Cork joins a search party that includes an ex-con, two FBI agents, and a ten-year-old boy. Others are on Shiloh’s trail as well—men hired not just to find her, but to kill her.

As the expedition ventures deeper into the wilderness, strangers descend on Aurora, threatening to spill blood on the town’s snowy streets. Meanwhile, out on the Boundary Waters, winter falls hard. Cork’s team of searchers loses contact with civilization, and like the brutal winds of a Minnesota blizzard, death—violent and sudden—stalks them.

Other Formats:: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

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The William Kent Krueger Collection #3: Thunder Bay, Red Knife, and Heaven's Keep (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series) 01/07/2014

by William Kent Krueger

( 87 )

$19.99

Three knockout Cork O’Connor mysteries in one unputdownable ebook!

Thunder Bay: Cork O’ Connor vows to save his friend and spiritual advisor whose life has been threatened by a wealthy industrialist. The past and present collide along the rocky shores of Thunder Bay, where a father's unconditional love is tested by a son's deeply felt resentment, and where jealousy and revenge remain the code among men.

Red Knife: The daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction; her father, strong-willed and brutal, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Native American youths accused of supplying the girl's fatal drug dose. When the leader and his wife are murdered, the gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.

Heaven’s Keep: Intrepid hero Cork O’ Connor faces the most harrowing mission of his life when a charter plane carrying his wife, Jo, goes missing in a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies.

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Lightning Strike: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 18) 24/08/2021

by William Kent Krueger

( 4,915 )

$12.99

An instant New York Times bestseller, this prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series is “a pitch perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author) about fathers and sons, small-town conflicts, and the events that shape our lives forever.

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

In this “brilliant achievement, and one every crime reader and writer needs to celebrate” (Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author), beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.

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Copper River: A Cork O'Connor Mystery (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 6) 22/08/2006

by William Kent Krueger

( 1,156 )

$9.99

Sheriff Cork O’Connor is running for his life—straight into a murderous conspiracy involving teenage runaways in this thrilling installment of William Kent Krueger’s “buy-today-read-tonight series” (Lee Child).

Desperately avoiding the professional hit men who have already put a bullet in his leg, Cork finds sanctuary outside the small Michigan town of Bodine. But while he’s hiding out in an old resort owned by his cousin Jewell DuBois, a bitter widow with a fourteen-year-old son named Ren, the body of a young girl surfaces along the banks of the Copper River. And then, soon after, another teenager vanishes.

Instead of thwarting his assassins, Cork focuses on tracking a ring of killers who prey on innocent children—desperate to catch them before anyone else falls victim. But as his deadly followers close in, Cork realizes he’s made an error any good man might make—and it may be his last.

Other Formats:: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

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The William Kent Krueger Collection #1: Iron Lake, Boundary Waters, and Purgatory Ridge (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series) 17/07/2012

by William Kent Krueger

( 71 )

$19.99

Three exciting Cork O’Connor mysteries in one package! Includes an exclusive introduction by William Kent Krueger that describes his experience writing these first three novels in his New York Times bestselling series.

Iron Lake: Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his “former” status and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago’s South Side, there’s not much that can shock him. But when the town’s judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.

Boundary Waters: Somewhere in the heart of the unforgiving Quetico-Superior Wilderness, near the U.S./Canada border, a young woman named Shiloh—a country-western singer at the height of her fame—has disappeared. Cork O’Connor joins a search party that includes an ex-con, two FBI agents, and a ten-year-old boy. Others are on Shiloh’s trail as well—men hired not just to find her, but to kill her. As the expedition ventures deeper into the wilderness, strangers descend on Aurora, threatening to spill blood on the town’s snowy streets. Meanwhile, out on the Boundary Waters, winter falls hard. Cork’s team of searchers loses contact with civilization, and like the brutal winds of a Minnesota blizzard, death—violent and sudden—stalks their every move.

Purgatory Ridge: Not far from Aurora, Minnesota (population 3,752), lies an ancient expanse of great white pines, sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe. When an explosion kills the night watchman at wealthy industrialist Karl Lindstrom’s nearby lumber mill, it’s obvious where suspicion will fall. Former sheriff Cork O’Connor agrees to help investigate, but he has mixed feelings about the case. For one thing, he is part Anishinaabe. For another, his wife, a lawyer, represents the tribe. Meanwhile, near Lindstrom’s lakeside home, a reclusive shipwreck survivor and his sidekick are harboring their own resentment of the industrialist. And it soon becomes clear to Cork that harmony, both at home and in Aurora, will be on the back burner for some time.

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Fox Creek: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 19) 23/08/2022

by William Kent Krueger

$21.99

The latest in the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series from the “master storyteller” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author) follows Cork in a race against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries.

The ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux has had a vision of his death. As he walks the Northwoods in solitude, he tries to prepare himself peacefully for the end of his long life. But peace is destined to elude him as hunters fill the woods seeking a woman named Dolores Morriseau, a stranger who had come to the healer for shelter and the gift of his wisdom.

Meloux guides this stranger and his great niece, Cork O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, his home for more than a century. On the last journey he may ever take into this beloved land, Meloux must do his best to outwit the deadly mercenaries who follow.

Meanwhile, in Aurora, Cork works feverishly to identify the hunters and the reason for their relentless pursuit, but he has little to go on. Desperate, Cork begins tracking the killers but his own skills as a hunter are severely tested by nightfall and a late season snowstorm. He knows only too well that with each passing hour time is running out. But his fiercest enemy in this deadly game of cat and mouse may well be his own deep self-doubt about his ability to save those he loves.

From “an author who never disappoints” (Bookreporter), this is another gripping and richly told addition to a masterful series.

Other Formats:: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover

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William Kent Krueger Collection #5: Tamarack County, Windigo Island, and Manitou Canyon (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series) 22/08/2017

by William Kent Krueger

( 28 )

$19.99

“Mystery fans can count on William Kent Krueger for an absorbing book with lots of twists and turns” (Denver Post) and now you can enjoy three absorbing and suspenseful Cork O’Conner mysteries in one stunning collection.

Tamarack County: As a blizzard swells in Tamarack County, a car belonging to the wife of a retired local judge is discovered abandoned on the side of the road. Early on in the investigation of her disappearance, Cork O’Connor, ex-sheriff of Tamarack County, notices small details that tell a disturbing story. When a neighbor’s dog is found beheaded and Cork’s son is attacked, he realizes these ominous incidents throughout the area have a pattern: someone is spinning a deadly web, and Cork has only hours to stop it before his family and his friends will be forced to pay the ultimate price.

Windigo Island: When the body of a teenaged Ojibwe girl washes up on the shore of an island in Lake Superior, the residents of the nearby Bad Bluff reservation whisper that it was the work of a deadly mythical beast, the Windigo. Such stories have been told by the Ojibwe people for generations, but they don’t explain how the girl and her friend, Mariah Arceneaux, disappeared a year ago. At the request of the Arceneaux family, Cork O’Connor takes on the case and he learns that the old port city of Duluth is a modern-day center for sex trafficking of vulnerable women, many of whom are young Native Americans. As the investigation deepens, so does the danger. Yet Cork is resolute in his vow to find Mariah, with only the barest hope of saving her from men whose darkness rivals that of the legendary Windigo, Cork prepares for an epic battle that will determine whether it will be fear, or love, that truly conquers all.

Manitou Canyon: Cork O’Connor is uneasy when his daughter chooses November as the month to set the date for her wedding. Since the violent deaths of his wife, father, and best friend all occurred in previous Novembers, Cork O’Connor has always considered it to the cruelest of months. His concern comes to a head when a man camping in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area goes missing. Although the wedding is fast approaching and the weather looks threatening, Cork ventures into the vast wilderness to search. With an early winter storm on the horizon, it is a race against time as Cork’s family struggles to uncover the mystery behind these disappearances. Little do they know, not only is Cork’s life on the line, but so are the lives of hundreds of others.

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The William Kent Krueger Collection #2: Blood Hollow, Mercy Falls, and Copper River (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series) 16/07/2013

by William Kent Krueger

( 42 )

$19.99

Three unforgettable Cork O’Connor mysteries in one thrilling collection!

Blood Hollow: When the corpse of a beautiful high school student is discovered 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.

Mercy Falls: Sheriff Cork O’Connor is called to investigate a mutilated body found perched above the raging waters of Mercy Falls. The victim is Eddie Jacoby, a Chicago businessman involved in negotiating an unpopular contract between his management firm and the local Indian casino. Sparks fly when the wealthy Jacoby family hires a beautiful investigator to consult on the case. But once Cork discovers ties between one of the Jacoby sons and his own wife, Jo, he begins to suspect that the events in Aurora have a darker, more personal motive than he could ever have imagined.

Copper River: Sheriff Cork O’Connor is running for his life from professional hit men who have already put a bullet through his leg. Desperate, he finds sanctuary outside a small town called Bodine on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in an old resort owned by his cousin, a bitter widow whose husband may have been killed by cops. When the body of a young girl surfaces along the banks of the Copper River and another teenager vanishes, Cork must choose between helping to solve these deadly mysteries and thwarting the hit men who draw closer to him with every hour.

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Mercy Falls: A Novel (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series Book 5) 16/08/2005

by William Kent Krueger

( 1,133 )

$9.99

In this “smart and satisfying” (Booklist) award-winning mystery from William Kent Krueger’s stunning Cork O’Connor series, the charismatic detective faces his most dangerous case to date.

Back in the saddle as sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork O’Connor is lured to the nearby Ojibwe reservation on what appears to be a routine call—only to become the target of sniper fire. Soon after, he’s called to investigate a mutilated body found perched above the raging waters of Mercy Falls. The victim is Eddie Jacoby, a Chicago businessman negotiating an unpopular contract between his management firm and the local Indian casino.

Sparks fly when the wealthy Jacoby family hires a beautiful private investigator to consult on the case. But once Cork discovers an old and passionate tie between one of the Jacoby’s sons and his own wife, Jo, he begins to suspect that dark, personal motives lurk behind recent events. Murder, greed, sex, and jealousy hide around every corner in this maze of danger. But somewhere beneath the turbulent Mercy Falls lies the truth—and Cork is determined to find it.

Other Formats:: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Mass Market Paperback , Audio CD

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