Marcus Public Library and The Friends of the Marcus Public Library, hosted Mr. William Kent Krueger, New York Times best-selling author, on Friday, May 12 at the Marcus Community Center.
You might think authors are quiet people that write and come from common ordinary backgrounds. Mr. Krueger’s lifestyle was just the opposite! He was raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, and briefly was a student at Stanford University until he was kicked out for radical activities. What could he do now? He ended up at logging camps and also worked at construction. He decided maybe he could do some free lance writing but he still was undecided about his future. At last he did some researching child development at the University of Minnesota. Minnesota seemed to be a place where he could find what he was looking for that also included a wife he has been married to for fifty years. He now makes his home in St. Paul.
He spoke to an attentive audience that evening in Marcus on his beginning of series writing. An ideal setting for writing about mysteries was in the north woods of Minnesota. What better way than to involve a former sheriff of Tamarack County whose heritage was of Irish and part Ojibwe. People in this area were of both heritages and found his series of Cork O’Conner books to be to their likening.
Kruger has written 24 books that include the Cork O’Conner series as well as several magazine articles. His writings have received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. In addition to these, he has received 19 awards that include the Edgar Award for Best Author. His last eleven novels were all New York Times bestsellers.
His novel, “Ordinary Grace” published in 2013, was the best novel published that year. “This Tender Land” published in September of 2019 was nearly six months on the New York Times bestseller list.
In checking with the Marcus Public Library, I found they have 19 of his books available to check out and enjoy reading. I did check out the novel, “Copper River”. In this book he writes about the mystery of teenage girls missing from Providence House. This House provided a safe place for girls overnight but at 6:30 a.m. the next morning, they had to leave this place and go to their job if they wanted a place to stay that night. If they didn’t return that evening, nothing was done about it as they probably found another way to live.
The novel involves “Charlie”—a girl! She could more than take care of herself and let others know she didn’t need them. It seemed that the only time people came to this small town in Michigan was to see the fall colors of leaves. The story takes place after the leaves have fallen and the cabins that were not occupied at the time except for one cabin. The former sheriff, Cork O’Conner had a price on his head and was on the run for being accused of killing a son of a rich person who had hired professional hit men. He had already been shot twice and a leg showed the result. Not wanting to involve his wife and children in this mess that he was involved in, Cork found his way to a cousin who owned the cabins and was a veterinarian who helped take care of him when she wasn’t on call which was most of the time. Did the hit men have any idea where their “victim” had gone to?
A cougar is involved in the story. Cougars are not seen in that part of the country but a cast of its foot print verifies it is a cougar. Now Cork has to be on the lookout for the cougar as well as the hit men. In the beginning, the reader is exposed to what appears to be a girl being stalked on by a man and probably being murdered. A private detective enters to help where Cork can’t. The cousin’s son, as well as several other friends, are into “drugs” and one even thinks he sees a body floating by in the river. Not sure if the drugs were doing this, not much is made of it until the detective begins to investigate. In the story there is also involved a section of country side that is blocked off and has security personal guarding it. These people owned land that they had saved trees from being cut down many years earlier and now lived in expensive houses. The owners called it “The Copper River Club”. The people that lived in the small town would have nothing in common with these people, so why was access to the Club being blocked off?
About the time the reader thinks he has the answer to the body in the river, suddenly another person enters the story that maybe could be involved in the crime. It is this type of writing that Krueger uses that gets the reader to feel they know “who” did “what” and “why” and then he uses a twist and what the reader thought was the answer has now changed. It is this type of writing that has given Krueger the awards he has.
Fees for coming, like to Marcus, are given to the Ojibwe people in Minnesota that are often mentioned in his Cork O’Connor series.
If you are interested in good mystery stories, go to the Marcus Public Library and check out one of Krueger’s books.