Red Knife

September 1, 2008
Buck Schirner, an actor with a deep, full-bodied voice, narrates Krueger's ninth novel about Minnesota private detective Cork O'Connor with a blunt, no-frills delivery. His voice is a perfect match for a cleanly written, robust adventure featuring an honorable hero of Caucasian-Ojibwe Indian heritage who keeps his human faults and strengths under wraps. As the sleuth is drawn into a series of violent events triggered by the death of a local power broker's meth-addicted daughter-including a brutal double murder, a potential race war, a looming north woods drug infestation and a school takeover by an armed student-Schirner subtly shifts his narration to fit the situation. He softens it a bit for O'Connor's sensitive probing of his suspects, but toughens up when necessary, as in the detective's violent confrontation with a group of drug dealers determined to kill or be killed. An Atria hardcover (Reviews, July 14).

Starred review from July 14, 2008
Racial tensions fuel Krueger's outstanding ninth Cork O'Connor mystery, which delivers everything its predecessors like Thunder Bay
have promised—and more. Threats from all sides assail former sheriff and part-time PI Cork O'Connor, who's part Ojibwa, in his efforts to mediate the smoldering feud between Tamarack County's whites and the recently formed Red Boyz: threats from Buck Reinhardt, brutal father of a girl destroyed by drugs dealt by Lonnie Thunder; from the Red Boyz after the gang-style execution of their leader, Alex Kingbird, and his wife; from the Latin Lords, expanding their drug trade into northern Minnesota. Simply and elegantly told, this sad story of loyalty and honor, corruption and hatred, hauntingly carves utterly convincing characters, both red and white, into the consciousness. Krueger mourns the death of ideals and celebrates true old values. As Cork tells an Ojibwa friend, “Maybe you can't alter the human heart... but you can remove the weapons”—the first step, perhaps, in blazing a trail toward sanity and hope.