New Releases by William Kent

William Kent Krueger’s gripping tale of suspense begins with a recurring nightmare, a gun, and a wound in the earth so deep and horrific that it has a name: Vermilion Drift. When the Department of Energy puts an underground iron mine on its short list of potential sites for storage of nuclear waste, a barrage of protest erupts in Tamarack County, Minnesota, and Cork is hired as a security consultant. Deep in the mine during his first day on the job, Cork stumbles across a secret room that contains the remains of six murder victims. Five appear to be nearly half a century old—connected to what the media once dubbed "The Vanishings," a series of unsolved disappearances in the summer of 1964, when Cork’s father was sheriff in Tamarack County. But the sixth has been dead less than a week. What’s worse, two of the bodies—including the most recent victim—were killed using Cork’s own gun, one handed down to him from his father. As Cork searches for answers, he must dig into his own past and that of his father, a well-respected man who harbored a ghastly truth. Time is running out, however. New threats surface, and unless Cork can unravel the tangled thread of clues quickly, more death is sure to come. Vermilion Drift is a powerful novel, filled with all the mystery and suspense for which Krueger has won so many awards. A poignant portrayal of the complexities of family life, it’s also a sobering reminder that even those closest to our hearts can house the darkest—and deadliest—of secrets.

You can’t keep Cork down, and in the next riveting novel in William Kent Krueger’s award-winning mystery series, Cork O’Connor again rises to the top as he investigates the disappearance of his beloved wife. When a charter plane carrying Cork O’Connor’s wife, Jo, goes missing in a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies, Cork must accept the terrible truth that his wife is gone forever. But is she? In Heaven’s Keep, celebrated author William Kent Krueger puts his intrepid hero through the most harrowing mission of his life. After many days filled with grief, two women show up at Cork’s doorstep with evidence that the pilot of Jo’s plane was not the man he claimed to be. It may not be definitive proof, but it’s a ray of light in the darkness surrounding Cork’s loss. Agreeing to investigate, he travels to Wyoming where he battles the interference of forces determined to throw Cork off the trail—permanently. At the center of all the danger and deception lies the possibility that Jo is not really dead and that, somewhere along the labyrinthine path of his search, Cork will find her alive and waiting for him. With deft plotting and writing that satisfies as much as it thrills, Heaven’s Keep gives readers an adventure not soon forgotten.

Includes excerpt of Heaven''s Keep by William Kent Krueger (p.[435-443]).

Krueger''s hero is running from professional hit men and he stumbles upon a murderous conspiracy involving teenage runaways.

Cork O''Connor is called in to investigate when a deadly explosion rocks the lumber mill of Karl Lindstrom, a wealthy, anti-environmentalist industrialist, whose mill is near an ancient tract of pine forest sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe.

O'Connor is caught in the middle of a gang dispute between the Aurora Anglos and the Ojibwe Reservation Red Boyz, a situation that turns deadly when the Red Boyz leader and his wife are found murdered.

In William Kent Krueger’s “finest work” (Michael Connelly), detective Cork O’Connor unravels a mystery for his old friend Henry Meloux, only to get caught in the blistering crossfire of jealousy and revenge. The promise, as I remember it, happened this way. Happy and content in his hometown of Aurora, Minnesota, Cork O’Connor has left his badge behind and is ready for a life of relative peace, setting up shop as a private investigator. But his newfound state of calm is soon interrupted when Henry Meloux, an Ojibwe medicine man and Cork’s spiritual adviser, makes a request: Will Cork find the son that Henry fathered long ago? With little to go on, Cork uses his investigative skills to locate Henry Wellington, a wealthy and reclusive industrialist living in Thunder Bay, Ontario. When a murder attempt is made on old Meloux’s life, all clues point north across the border. But why would Wellington want his father dead? This question takes Cork on a journey through time as he unravels the story of Meloux’s 1920s adventure in the ore-rich wilderness of Canada, where his love for a beautiful woman, far outside his culture, led him into a trap of treachery, greed, and murder. 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. As Cork hastens to uncover the truth and save his friend, he soon discovers that his own life is in danger and is reminded that the promises we keep—even for the best of friends—can sometimes place us in the hands of our worst enemies.

When a high school student’s body is found and her boyfriend goes missing, tough-as-nails former sheriff Cork O’Connor is forced into the center of an eerie mystery with a shocking twist in this “vivid and realistic” (Booklist), Anthony Award-winning novel from New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger. When the body of a beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months 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 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. Some—like bigotry and bureaucracy—he knows all too well. What Cork isn’t prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment from his own childhood. And when Solemn reappears, claiming to have seen a vision of Jesus Christ in Blood Hollow, the mystery becomes thornier than Cork could ever have anticipated. And that''s when the miracles start happening.

From the creator of the critically acclaimed, award-winning Cork O''Connor mystery series comes a haunting, atmospheric, conspiracy thriller. When President Clay Dixon''s father-in-law—a former vice president—is injured in a farming accident, First Lady Kate Dixon returns to Minnesota to be at his side. Assigned to protect her, Secret Service agent Bo Thorsen soon falls under Kate''s spell. He also suspects the accident is part of a trap set for Kate by David Moses, an escaped mental patient who once loved her. What Bo and Moses don''t realize is that they''re caught in a web of deadly intrigue spun by a seemingly insignificant bureaucratic department within the federal government. Racing to find answers before an assassin''s bullet can kill Kate, Bo soon learns that when you lie down with the devil, there''s hell to pay.

Former sheriff Cork O''Connor is hired to find a friend''s daughter, a country-western singer missing in the wilds of Minnesota. O''Connor discovers FBI agents and a gangster from a casino are also looking for the woman, but they won''t say why.

This work represents an extension of the author's notes and references collected during a series of investigations ... for the purpose of obtaining a clear insight into the functioning of the improved legal machinery sought to be adapted for securing greater municipal freedom and efficiency.