Purgatory Ridge (Cork O’Connor #3), William Kent Krueger. Pocket Books (ISBN: 9780671047542), 2002.
Summary: A murder investigation becomes far more when a kidnapping plot involves Cork’s own family as well as that of a prominent mill owner.
Slowly, the wounds of the past are healing. Cork O’Connor is back at home with Jo. He’s enjoying slinging burgers with his kids at Sam’s. Then an explosion changes everything in a moment. The explosion at Karl Lindstrom’s mill not only caused extensive damage. It took a life of a tribal elder, Charlie Warren. And the sheriff asks Cork to assist with the investigation because he is part Anishinaabe. Also, the sheriff is not running for office again. There are many, including the sheriff, who are encouraging Cork to run again.
Lindstrom’s mill is at the center of controversy. He’s wants to log a sacred stand of white pines. Not only the tribe is protesting. So is a figure known as the “Eco-Warrior” as well as a mother and son team, which could be one and the same. Attention focuses on them. As Cork is drawn into the investigation, tension arises with Jo, who fears what will happen if Cork becomes sheriff.
Meanwhile, across the lake from Lindstrom’s grand home, John La Pere nurses a grievance. Fourteen years earlier, he took his brother Billy on the final voyage of a lake freighter before it was to be decommissioned. Storms hit Superior that night and the freighter broke up. Only John survived of all on board. He suspects the breakup wasn’t due to the storm. What makes matters worse is that Lindstrom’s wife Grace is the daughter of the freighter owner.
He teams up with Wes Bridger, a gambler at the casino with some special skills, locating the freighter only to have their efforts sabotaged. He agrees to a plot Bridger has proposed that will give him the money to investigate the sinking and get the evidence against the company. While Cork is protecting Lindstrom at a speaking event, Bridger and La Pere kidnap Grace and her son. There’s one complication. Grace had invited Jo O’Connor and her son Stevie for a confidential conversation. The kidnappers take them as well.
Krueger has given us another page-turning thriller as Cork and Lindstrom, along with law enforcement try to rescue their families. Meanwhile, the women and their sons are doing what they can to survive and escape. Jo’s sister Rose exercises a faithful presence that steadies the family. She believes in God when Cork and Jo cannot. Henry Meloux offers insight that enables Cork to step back and get perspective. We also get intimations that young Stevie will someday be a force to reckon with. When Karl Lindstrom cannot raise the ransom, the casino owner, a tribal member offers him a no interest loan. Krueger weaves the fabric of a moral universe deeper and richer than treacherous actors. He draws characters for whom we care deeply as well as evil actors, and one tragic figure. This novel has all the elements just right.