Vermilion Drift

I read this because I will read them all. But good heavens! Previous books gained much from the interplay between Cork and his wife, not just their relationship itself but her independence and wisdom that provides another perspective for him to consider. This one lacks that element, and it suffers from that lack. It also suffers for lack of a good editor who would have caught one of the glaring inconsistencies that threw me out of the action right in the middle of the climax. Good grief!

I have read 11 of the 16 books in this series about the character called Cork O’Connor. He is half-American Indian and a former sheriff, now a P.I. (because he didn’t want to kill people anymore). This author includes many episodes of violence and how Cork contains it and outsmarts the “bad” people in the story. I have learned a lot about the American Indian, and their lives on the reservation, aka The Rez.

I have read every book in this series and gave five stars to each one. This book lacks punch. The dialogue is tedious. The storyline is not believable. And I do not appreciate the language. It seemed every character use the Lord’s name as a curse word. Also, none of his supporting cast was involved in the story which made Cork a two-dimensional character. This book could have been edited better. I miss the Cork of the first nine books. It wasn’t worth the $10 I spent on it. I am now leary about reading the next book in the series. It’s a shame because Krueger is an excellent author. I’m not sure what happened here.

We are seeing a new Cork here. In Heaven’s Keep, the previous book in the series, Cork’s wife, Jo, dies in a plane hijacking. We now see him six months later. His children are all away from home and only Trixie, their aging family dog, is there to greet him at night. Mr. Kreuger very sensitively handles Cork’s loneliness and his determination not to be overcome by it. The action of the story, however, centers on the Vermillion Drift, a now-abandoned and sealed iron mine which is being eyed by the government as a possible site for the storage of nuclear waste. Both the native Ojibwe, whose reservation borders the mine property, and the County (white) population regard this with very mixed emotions.
In the course of determining the mine’s suitability, an inspection team comes upon a room, seemingly blocked by a cave-in, which contains the remains of several bodies. Most are very old, but one has been recently deposited. This not only makes the room a crime scene but also implies a hidden entrance somewhere, and Cork is called in by the County sheriff to investigate. Matters become personal for Cork when ballistic analysis shows that the fatal bullet in the recent body and one retrieved from one of the old corpses could both have come from a gun Cork’s father owned years ago; one which Cork has kept securely hidden ever since his death. It is now missing.
The rest of the tale deals not only with the bodies, all of which date back to what had became known as “The Vanishings”, but also with Cork’s feelings about his father. Could he have somehow been involved? Henry Meloux, the Objibwe shaman and Cork’s good friend, is now over 90 and getting quite frail, but Cork hastens to him to find out what he knows. Henry is maddeningly vague, as always, but with the aid of a session in a sweat lodge and his own detective work Cork comes to understand what actually happened.
What we have here is not an ordinary cops-and-robbers, but rather a crime story mixed in with a study of grief. It is a kind of transitional work in the Cork O’Connor series, and no less interesting therefore, but it may not be to everyone’s taste.

I am not sure why, but I took a flier on William Kent Krueger’s first novel, Iron Lake. I loved it and started reading his entire Cork O’Connor series. I am up to #12 and have loved every one. Each novel has featured character development, action, and suspense in the Minnesota area Krueger is so familiar with. I have his last four O’Connor novels set aside to read. I highly recommend this series. I also read the novels of the likes of Michael Connelly, Dana Stabenow and Lee Child among others, and Krueger takes his rightful place alongside them in my estimation.

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