In this 17th installment of the Edgar Award-winning author's Cork O'Connor series, Cork and his son Stephen work to uncover the truth behind the tragic plane crash of a senator on Desolation Mountain in the Iron Lake Reservation and the mysterious disappearances of several Ojibwe first responders.
If his loyal spirit, derring-do, Iron Range ruggedness and protect-my-people nature don’t hook you, an irresistible story line will ... Krueger keeps up the tension and mystery in this, the 17th Cork O’Connor novel, partly through his comfort with real places—Iron Range towns, Iron Lake and other familiar treasures. He uses them to develop an uncanny sense of place and purpose; we can almost smell the pines and see the reflection of the moon on a cold lake. Krueger has an obvious affection for his richly developed, recurring characters ... Krueger’s taut storytelling and intricate plots almost always center on a topic in the news, a compelling hook he’s researched well and has wrapped his tale around.
William Kent Krueger’s 17th O’Connor novel packs the same punch of suspense that his readers have come to expect, but also takes a slight supernatural turn ... The plot features a few well-written twists and turns, and Krueger knows how to keep readers off-balance as the plot unfolds. Likewise, the story is visually stunning, capturing the setting in a way that allows readers to feel like they’re trekking across the Iron Lake Reservation. William Kent Krueger brings the vast Minnesota landscape to life the way C.J. Box does with Wyoming, allowing the setting itself to become a character in the story. Just when you think you know what’s going on, Krueger darts in another direction, pulling readers helplessly along the twisting ride through the haunting wild ... Desolation Mountain is as spooky as it is suspenseful, an addictive recipe that William Kent Krueger serves up as good as anyone in the business.
Desolation Mountain isn’t quite a transition volume in the Cork O’Connor series, but one can sense that perhaps the baton is being lifted, if not passed ... He hints with startling effect near the conclusion that at least one major change is in the offing in the near future, but in the meantime reintroduces a long-absent character in a tale that brings sudden death and intrigue from the outside world to Cork’s relatively quiet life ... It is easy to conclude that Krueger may be on the verge of slowly winding down the series, or at the very least instituting a major shift in perspective. The constant here is that his prose continues to mirror and echo the beauty of Minnesota’s wilderness and the soul of the people who reside there in a lifestyle that hardly can be considered easy. Followers of the series will want to put this one on their must-read list.
