{"id":5842,"date":"2024-08-16T08:07:02","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T15:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5842"},"modified":"2024-08-16T08:07:02","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T15:07:02","slug":"william-kent-krueger-spirit-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/william-kent-krueger-spirit-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"William Kent Krueger: Spirit Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cork O’Connor #20<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I have read every Cork O\u2019Connor book to date, and it\u2019s a series that\u2019s managed to stay fresh and entertaining through it\u2019s now long (and classic) run.\u00a0 The books follow Cork as sheriff in Aurora, Minnesota, as he raises his family, loses his wife, remarries, and leaves law enforcement and becomes a private investigator. However, I don\u2019t think of these books as P.I. novels.\u00a0 I think of them primarily as family novels.\u00a0 I think the combination of Cork\u2019s family story and the action and mystery Krueger brings to the table make these appealing to both male and female readers, something not always true in mystery novels, which tend to skew toward one gender or another in terms of readership.<\/p>\n

They are also social issue novels, and in this novel, he addresses the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women.\u00a0 Cork, the character, is half Irish and half Ojibwe. It gives him standing when he\u2019s investigating crimes involving natives.\u00a0 Additionally, he has an Ojibwe wife and grandson, and it\u2019s his grandson, Waaboo (Little Rabbit), who figures most prominently in this novel.\u00a0 Waaboo, like his uncle Stephen, has visions and connects with spirits.\u00a0 When the family is out picking blueberries one morning, they find the patch trampled, and when they instead hit Cork\u2019s \u201csecret\u201d patch, Waaboo finds a shallow grave and says he feels fear and sadness. He has to be taken away, but there is indeed a body uncovered when the authorities arrive.<\/p>\n

Waaboo insists there was another spirit.\u00a0 The body is assumed to belong to the missing daughter of a politician, but as far as Cork and Waaboo\u2019s father are concerned, the hunt is on for the additional spirit. \u00a0The body does not turn out to be the politician\u2019s daughter, but it ramps up the investigation, which now includes a complex amalgam of local cops, Reservation police, State police, and FBI. It\u2019s the combination of talent (but mostly Cork\u2019s work with the local sheriff, Marcia Dross) that finally puts a crack in the case.<\/p>\n

Waaboo is unfortunately drawing attention for his gifts and he\u2019s taken to stay out in the woods with Henry Meloux, who is helping him to understand them.\u00a0 In typical Krueger fashion, there is much going on: there\u2019s the investigation into the missing girls; there\u2019s Waaboo; and there\u2019s Cork\u2019s daughter Annie, returned home from Guatemala for her brother\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 There\u2019s something bothering her which gradually becomes clear as the book progresses.<\/p>\n

This is a well told, moving story (cry meter: three), great mystery, wonderful characters, and Krueger uses his now very large platform to highlight the problem of missing Native American girls.\u00a0 He does it in a way that\u2019s completely integrated into the story \u2013 this is after all a novel, not a polemic \u2013 but there\u2019s an afterword that gives more statistics and detail. I loved the development of Waaboo\u2019s gift and the way his family is helping him handle it.\u00a0 20 books into this series, there\u2019s still plenty for Krueger to tell us about Cork O\u2019Connor, his family, and the place where he lives. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cork O’Connor #20 I have read every Cork O\u2019Connor book to date, and it\u2019s a series that\u2019s managed to stay fresh and entertaining through it\u2019s now long (and classic) run.\u00a0 The books follow Cork as sheriff in Aurora, Minnesota, as he raises his family, loses his wife, remarries, and leaves law enforcement and becomes a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[884,886,948,178,1774,566,1773,1775,176],"class_list":["post-5842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-atria-books","tag-cork-oconnor","tag-family","tag-minnesota","tag-missing-indigenous-women","tag-private-eye","tag-spirit-crossing","tag-spiritual-gift","tag-william-kent-krueger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5884,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5842\/revisions\/5884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}