Meloux guides this stranger and his great niece, Cork O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, his home for more than a century. But peace is destined to elude him as hunters fill the woods seeking a woman named Dolores Morriseau, a stranger who had come to the healer for shelter and the gift of his wisdom. As he walks the Northwoods in solitude, he tries to prepare himself peacefully for the end of his long life. The ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux has had a vision of his death.

30, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior.The latest in the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series follows Cork in a race against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries. 24, Totally Criminal Cocktail Hour, Zephyr Theater, Stillwater, $10 7 p.m. Maren Longbella is a Star Tribune copy editor.Įvents: 6 p.m. Maybe he should start calling himself an alchemist, because he has the formula down to an art. But from 'Iron Lake' - the first in the Cork O'Connor series - to 'Fox Creek,' Krueger has exhibited a mastery and control that can't be denied. The author has consistently called himself a storyteller, not a writer, as if the one was somehow lesser than the other. Krueger wastes no time plunging into the action, using present tense to maintain immediacy and ratcheting up the tension through interspersed points of view in short, taut chapters.

Cork is hesitant to put much stock in it (his relationship with the spiritual returns again and again throughout the series), but there's no doubt that Henry is in trouble. Cork is hard on their heels as he tries to unravel who the woman really is, why these men are looking for her and who hired them.Īdding to the urgency is the vision of Henry's death that has visited the healer. Three guns-for-hire have come looking for a woman who has taken refuge with Henry Meloux, forcing the ancient Anishinaabe healer (and recurring character, if you're not in the know) to escape into the wilderness with the woman and Cork's wife. That's a lot of mayhem, even for a fictional place, and former sheriff Cork O'Connor is hip-deep in it in 'Fox Creek,' the latest addition to William Kent Krueger's mystery series. Trouble has returned - for the 19th time! - to the northern Minnesota town of Aurora, population 3,700.

Fox creek william kent krueger