Poignant, evocative and completely engrossing, Apostle’s Cove is a corkscrewing mystery that will exercise your brain and stir your emotions. William Kent Krueger has done it again, delivering another impressive and moving story in this incredible series. From the littlest details to the big picture, everything is crafted with precision and purpose to achieve storytelling perfection.
Cork O’Connor receives a call from his son Stephen, who tells him that while working for a nonprofit dedicated to freeing wrongfully convicted prisoners, he has come across a murder case involving an Ojibwe man whom Cork helped imprison. A man who now appears to be innocent. Cork is compelled to reinvestigate the case but must do so without the help of the very convict he put away, who has found purpose and peace behind bars. As he digs deeper, old feelings that something was always off about this case arise and are further stoked when he becomes a target by those in Tamarack County who want to leave the past buried. However, Cork will not be deterred in his quest to find the truth and defend his honor as a law enforcement officer and as a person with a strong moral compass. Even if there are others who would do him harm to keep him from finally figuring out what happened 25 years ago.
Apostle’s Cove is structured in two parts: part one is an uninterrupted flashback to the crime and the initial investigation and part two is the current day reexamination of the case. Which makes this feel like two stories in one book that each provide an undisturbed narrative of the events as they happened, rather than a slow drip of info that goes back and forth between past and present. Both methods can work, but in this case, it was the perfect choice to grab the reader’s attention and hold it throughout, essentially having us ride shotgun during both investigations and asking us to continuously theorize what really happened and who was involved.
And it is one hell of a well-written story that has everything you would expect from a Cork O’Connor novel. Crime, investigations, a divided community across Native American and Caucasian lines, tremendous character development, dangerous situations, gruesome and lewd descriptions balanced out with moments of love and tenderness, and the truth finally revealing itself after a twisting and turning examination where Cork seeks the help and wisdom of others.
And of course there’s a healthy dose of family, spirituality, emotion and life lessons that make your heart feel full and your soul feel free as you close the back cover. Marking the twenty-first example of William Kent Kruger’s literary brilliance in telling Cork O’Connor’s stories. And resulting in the annual confirmation that this is the best, and my favorite, series in print today.
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