Thunder Bay (Cork O'Connor Series #7)

by William Kent Krueger Narrated by David Chandler

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Blood ties lead to bloody murder. Cork O'Connor, ex-sheriff of Tamarack County (Minn.), has rusticated himself to his home town of Aurora. Thought he's got himself a brand-new private-eye license, modest Aurora is not going to overwhelm him with gigs, and he knows it. Instead, he's content to run his increasingly popular hamburger joint and pay more attention to his wife and three kids. But best-laid plans don't make the most compelling stories, and for better or worse Cork finds himself bound for Canada's Thunder Bay to search for a man he isn't absolutely sure exists. It's the son of old Henry Meloux, who's been friend, mentor and spiritual advisor to Cork for more years than he cares to remember. Hospitalized and reputed to be dying, Meloux, in his quiet, understated, inflexible Ojibwe way, asks for what amounts to a miracle. Seventy-three winters ago, he tells Cork, he fathered a son he's seen only in visions. "Bring him to me," he asks, and Cork feels he has no choice but to try. At length, he laboriously stitches together some clues and arrives at an identity for Meloux Jr. At least that's what he hopes he's done, until murder most Oedipal seems to rear its malevolent head. Krueger (Copper River, 2006, etc.) is less sententious than usual, and his storytelling benefits markedly. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller/Browne & Miller Literary Associates

S.J. Rozan

"William Kent Krueger has one of the most fresh and authentic voices in crime fiction. In Thunder Bay he uses it to tell a resonant, gripping story. Don't miss this book."

Lee Child

One of today’s automatic buy-today-read-tonight series... thoughtful but suspenseful, fast but lasting, contemporary but strangely timeless. Krueger hits the sweet spot every time.

Laura Lippman

"Thunder Bay has everything that William Kent Krueger's longtime fans have come to expect in this lovely series - and everything it needs to entice new readers into the fold. Steeped in place, sweetly melancholic in tone, it braids together multiple stories about love, loss, and family. The result is a wholly satisfying novel that is over almost too soon."

Vince Flynn

"William Kent Krueger is one of the best mystery writers out there, and Thunder Bay is his most powerful novel to date. Any reader who has yet to pick up one of his Cork O'Connor suspense novels is in for a rare treat."

Michael Connelly

"Thunder Bay is William Kent Krueger's finest work. A strong story with a fast-beating heart, this is the kind of novel that will bring many new readers knocking on Cork O'Connor's door. Count me as one of them."

From the Publisher

"Thunder Bay is William Kent Krueger's finest work. A strong story with a fast-beating heart, this is the kind of novel that will bring many new readers knocking on Cork O'Connor's door. Count me as one of them." - Michael Connelly

"William Kent Krueger is one of the best mystery writers out there, and Thunder Bay is his most powerful novel to date. Any reader who has yet to pick up one of his Cork O'Connor suspense novels is in for a rare treat." - Vince Flynn

"Thunder Bay has everything that William Kent Krueger's longtime fans have come to expect in this lovely series - and everything it needs to entice new readers into the fold. Steeped in place, sweetly melancholic in tone, it braids together multiple stories about love, loss, and family. The result is a wholly satisfying novel that is over almost too soon." - Laura Lippman

"William Kent Krueger has one of the most fresh and authentic voices in crime fiction. In Thunder Bay he uses it to tell a resonant, gripping story. Don't miss this book." - S.J. Rozan, Edgar Award-winning author of In This Rain

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173957085
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	07/22/2019
Series:	Cork O'Connor Series
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Thunder Bay

A Cork O'Connor Mystery

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By William Kent Krueger

Atria

Copyright © 2007 William Kent Krueger
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780743278416

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one

The promise, as I remember it, happened this way.

A warm August morning, early. Wally Schanno's already waiting at the landing. His truck's parked in the lot, his boat's in the water. He's drinking coffee from a red thermos big as a fireplug.

Iron Lake is glass. East, it mirrors the peach-colored dawn. West, it still reflects the hard bruise of night. Tall pines, dark in the early morning light, make a black ragged frame around the water.

The dock's old, weathered, the wood gone fuzzy, flaking gray. The boards sag under my weight, groan a little.

"Coffee?" Schanno offers.

I shake my head, toss my gear into his boat. "Let's fish."

We're far north of Aurora, Minnesota. Among the trees on the shoreline, an occasional light glimmers from one of the cabins hidden there. Schanno motors slowly toward a spot off a rocky point where the bottom falls away quickly. Cuts the engine. Sorts through his tackle box. Pulls out a pearl white minnow flash, a decent clear-water lure for walleye. Clips it on his line. Casts.

Me, I choose a smoky Twister Tail and add a little fish scent. Half a minute after Schanno's, my lure hits the water.

August isn't the best time to fish. For one thing, thebugs are awful. Also, the water near the surface is often too warm. The big fish -- walleye and bass -- dive deep, seeking cooler currents. Unless you use sonar, they can be impossible to locate. There are shallows near a half-submerged log off to the north where something smaller -- perch or crappies -- might be feeding. But I've already guessed that fishing isn't what's on Schanno's mind.

The afternoon before, he'd come to Sam's Place, the burger joint I own on Iron Lake. He'd leaned in the window and asked for a chocolate shake. I couldn't remember the last time Schanno had actually ordered something from me. He stood with the big Sweetheart cup in his hand, not sipping from the straw, not saying anything, but not leaving either. His wife, Arletta, had died a few months before. A victim of Alzheimer's, she'd succumbed to a massive stroke. She'd been a fine woman, a teacher. Both my daughters, Jenny and Anne, had passed through her third-grade classroom years before. Loved her. Everybody did. Schanno's children had moved far away, to Bethesda, Maryland, and Seattle, Washington. Arletta's death left Wally alone in the house he'd shared with her for over forty years. He'd begun to hang around Johnny's Pinewood Broiler for hours, drinking coffee, talking with the regulars, other men who'd lost wives, jobs, direction. He walked the streets of town and stood staring a long time at window displays. He was well into his sixties, a big man -- shoes specially made from the Red Wing factory -- with a strong build, hands like an orangutan. A couple of years earlier, because of Arletta's illness, he'd retired as sheriff of Tamarack County, which was a job I'd held twice myself. Some men, idle time suits them. Others, it's a death sentence. Wally Schanno looked like a man condemned.

When he suggested we go fishing in the morning, I'd said sure.

Now we're alone on the lake -- me, Schanno, and a couple of loons fifty yards to our right diving for breakfast. The sun creeps above the trees. Suddenly everything has color. We breathe in the scent of evergreen and clean water and the faint fish odor coming from the bottom of Schanno's boat. Half an hour and we haven't said a word. The only sounds are the sizzle of line as we cast, the plop of the lures hitting water, and the occasional cry of the loons.

I'm happy to be there on that August morning. Happy to be fishing, although I hold no hope of catching anything. Happy to be sharing the boat and the moment with a man like Schanno.

"Heard you got yourself a PI license," Schanno says.

I wind my reel smoothly, jerking the rod back occasionally to make the lure dart in the water like a little fish. There aren't any walleyes to fool, but it's what you do when you're fishing.

"Yep," I reply.

"Gonna hang out a shingle or something?"

The line as I draw it in leaves the smallest of wakes on the glassy surface, dark wrinkles crawling across the reflected sky. "I haven't decided."

"Figure there's enough business to support a PI here?"

He asks this without looking at me, pretending to watch his line.

"Guess I'll find out," I tell him.

"Not happy running Sam's Place?"

"I like it fine. But I'm closed all winter. Need something to keep me occupied and out of mischief."

"What's Jo think?" Talking about my wife.

"So long as I don't put on a badge again, she's happy."

Schanno says, "I feel like I'm dying, Cork."

"Are you sick?"

"No, no." He's quick to wave off my concern. "I'm bored. Bored to death. I'm too old for law enforcement, too young for a rocking chair."

"They're always hiring security at the casino."

Shakes his head. "Sit-on-your-ass kind of job. Not for me."

"What exactly are you asking, Wally?"

"Just that if something, you know, comes your way that you need help with, something you can't handle on your own, well, maybe you'll think about giving me a call."

"You don't have a license."

"I could get one. Or just make me a consultant. Hell, I'll do it for free."

The sun's shooting fire at us across the water. Another boat has appeared half a mile south. The loons take off, flapping north.

"Tell you what, Wally. Anything comes my way I think you could help me with, I promise I'll let you know."

He looks satisfied. In fact, he looks damn happy.

We both change lures and make a dozen more casts without a bite. Another boat appears.

"The lake's getting crowded," I say. "How 'bout we call it and have some breakfast at the Broiler."

"On me," Schanno offers, beaming.

We reel in our lines. Head back toward the landing. Feeling pretty good.

Nights when I cannot sleep and the demons of my past come to torment me, the promise I made to Wally Schanno that fine August morning is always among them.

Copyright (c) 2007 by William Kent Krueger

Continues...

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Excerpted from Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger Copyright © 2007 by William Kent Krueger. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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