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BLOOD HOLLOW
by William Kent Krueger
Atria Books, February 2004
352 pages
$24.00
ISBN: 0743445864


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This griping and intense story opens in January as Cork O'Connor and others search for a missing teenager in the wilderness around Aurora, Minnesota. A blizzard forces the searchers home, but not before Cork is nearly lost in a whiteout.

The action then fast forwards to April when the girl's body is found and very soon Solemn Winter Moon, the young great-nephew of Sam Winter Moon, Cork's mentor, is arrested for murder. Not only does this create intolerable tension between the Ojibwe of the nearby reservation and the townspeople, but also Cork believes that Solemn is innocent. When Jo O'Connor agrees to defend Solemn, Cork sets out to uncover the real murderer. What he learns turns Aurora upside down.

The first thing that the reader observes as she begins this intriguing mystery is that Krueger is simply a marvelous writer. His prose is exquisite, polished, elegant. It is possible to stop and savor a passage as one does a morsel of delicious food. But the writing never gets in the way of the story. It does not force the reader to slow down and try to figure out what is happening. It aids her on the journey.

The next thing the reader remarks is the setting, the intense backdrop against which this action takes place. Northern Minnesota through the eyes of Krueger is truly beautiful, magnificent, majestic. The woods, deep, green, brooding; the lakes, brilliant blue teardrops against the verdant trees; the winter snow and the summer heat -- all these are presented so that the reader experiences and sees this setting which truly becomes one of the characters in the book. It influences and determines how the people act and react. The weather acts to establish mood and tone; the snow, the rain, the brilliant sun reflect the events transpiring.

And then there are the characters -- believable, authentic, complex human beings. Towards the end of the book, Krueger describes the characters he has created: "All human beings, it seemed to him, were a collection of conflicting impulses stuffed into one skin, trying somehow to find peace." There are no monochromatic characters in this novel. All of them have good and bad within them. There is no purely evil villain or saintly victim. Cork, at the center of the story, is growing and changing in each novel, moving toward something not even he completely comprehends. All the characters are so rich that they are a joy to know. They are people we care for, people we empathize with even, strangely enough, when they are committing murder.

The plot is complex and intricate. Things are not what they seem. Several times I decided I knew who the villain was and every time I was wrong. There are several subplots compounding the suspense and the action, and all these keep the reader involved in and absorbed by what is clearly a story which affects the reader profoundly.

Finally in all of Krueger's mysteries there is the hint of the not-natural, the supra-natural. There is nothing that is impossible to believe, no real ghosts or supernatural beings. But from time to time as we read we seem to move closer to the gray, foggy curtain which separates the world as we know it from whatever may be on the other side of that curtain. This adds an additional degree of complexity and attraction to already intriguing stories.

In all, I cannot say enough about this book. Krueger, who was very good in his first novel, has grown as a writer and gives us, in this book, an outstanding story calculated to hold our interest and characters who are sympathetic and believable.

Reviewed by Sally Fellows, January 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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