Sulfur Springs

I’ve always given William Kent Kreuger’s books five stars. This one just annoyed me. He’s so fortunate to be one of those people whose job and housing and possibly business has not been taken by illegal immigrants. Those jobs that “Americans won’t do,” were indeed done by many of us, the only way we could support our children. There’s little affordable housing and that is being taken by immigrants who can afford it by pushing two or three families inside. Small service business can’t compete with people who hire illegals and don’t have the burden of payroll taxes and minimum wage requirements. Kreuger does a beautiful job writing about the great North woods of Minnesota, and should stick to what he knows. When he paints the only compassionate people as those who break this country’s laws to bring in workers to displace America’s, he loses me as a reader. Those laws are there for a reason–to protect us against criminals, disease, and people dependent on our welfare system. I guess I never knew we could choose which laws we wanted to obey.

Im not even finished reading the book and I wished I saved my money. Im not interested in Mr Kruegers politics anymore than he would be in mine. So far, it is the usual blather about an extremely complicated situation that does nothing to get at a real solution. I think the author is more interested in showing us what a big heart he has. I love it when rich people, who can insulate themselves from harm, let us peons know just how heartless we are. The book is annoying, simplistic and so very disappointing.

I have read and enjoyed all of the series up to this book. But when an author starts preaching a political line of BS the book quickly becomes very boring, and sadly the author took this story totally in that direction. There are many great books yet to be enjoyed, and without a faulty line of political correctness that borders on the stupid. So long Cork.

I like all of the previous Cork O’Connor books written by William Kent Krueger. This one is an exception. I knew it would be different because the storyline took place in Arizona. But I didn’t know that it would be filled with narrative defending the poor illegal immigrants (my words, not Kreuger’s) who cross our borders. Nor with defending the “angels” (his words, not mine) who go out into the desert to bring the illegals water and food and lead them to sanctuary in our country. The entire plot revolves around these two topics with side trips into descriptions of anti-immigrant groups and corrupt law enforcement officers.

Cork needs to go back to Minnesota

William Kent Krueger had trouble making his last novel-in-progress work and that put him off his usual publication schedule. As a result, SULFUR SPRINGS has been much-anticipated and turns out to have been well worth the wait. It represents something of a departure from the Cork OConnor series, whose hallmark is its northern Minnesota setting and the manner in which it is affected by the Ojibwe culture. SULFUR SPRINGS begins and ends in Minnesota (and Henry Meloux does appear in the novel briefly), but the bulk of the story is set in Arizona.

Cork has now married Henrys great-niece, Rainy, but Rainys son Peter is in trouble, the nature of that trouble not yet understood or defined. Ex-military, Peter is a strong, sensitive sort who was for a time addicted to painkillers. He spent some time in a posh clinic to re-hab, then worked for an Arizona winery and is now in the wind. He appears to have been involved with a person named Rodriguez and that relationship may, in some way, have involved murder. Cork and Rainy get on the first available plane to Arizona. The center of the action is a fictional town called Cadiz, which is located south of Tucson. We are thus in the Tucson-Nogales corridor with multiple visits to the local mountains and their abandoned mines.

The mines may hold new riches if they are reopened. In the meantime they may shelter would-be immigrants and/or the wares of drug cartels. The author sets up the search-for-Peter story within a milieu that includes border guards, drug traffickers, coyotes, winemakers, real estate developers, an aging bi-plane pilot and a secret, sort-of supremacist group. We also meet Rainys first husband, himself a member of a Mexican drug cartel, who is willing to invest time and resources in the effort to find his son. His entry adds sexual tension and jealousy to the quest story.

Corks job is to find Peter, help protect Rainy, and, in particular, dodge the bad guys when its never really clear who those individuals actually are. The principal theme of the story is the nature of trustits importance in marriage and its importance within society.

WKK manages to capture the local setting with all of the specificity and intensity that he brings to the northwoods, no mean feat given its essential barrenness, oppressive heat and a sky full of vultures rather than the tops of evergreen trees. The story is strong, the characters interesting, the romantic subplot effective. WKKs novels are all excellent, so it is difficult to actually rank them. SULFUR SPRINGS is a fine addition to the series.

Highly recommended.

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