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Fiction. Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. Some nights, Corcoran O'Connor dreams his father's death. William Kent Krueger's gripping tale of suspense begins with a recurring nightmare, a gun, and a wound in the earth so deep and horrific that it has a name: Vermilion Drift. When the Department of Energy puts an underground iron mine on its short list of potential sites for storage of nuclear waste, a barrage of protest erupts in Tamarack County, Minnesota, and Cork is hired as a security consultant. Deep in the mine during his first day on the job, Cork stumbles across a secret room that contains the remains of six murder victims. Five appear to be nearly half a century old-connected to what the media once dubbed "The Vanishings," a series of unsolved disappearances in the summer of 1964, when Cork's father was sheriff in Tamarack County. But the sixth has been dead less than a week. What's worse, two of the bodies-including the most recent victim-were killed using Cork's own gun, one handed down to him from his father. As Cork searches for answers, he must dig into his own past and that of his father, a well-respected man who harbored a ghastly truth. Time is running out, however. New threats surface, and unless Cork can unravel the tangled thread of clues quickly, more death is sure to come. Vermilion Drift is a powerful novel, filled with all the mystery and suspense for which Krueger has won so many awards. A poignant portrayal of the complexities of family life, it's also a sobering reminder that even those closest to our hearts can house the darkest-and deadliest-of secrets.… (more)
User reviews
You learn quite a bit about iron mining in this
The [fictional] Vermilion One Iron Mine near where O’Connor lives is being investigated as a potential site for nuclear waste disposal. [Indian Country has often been considered for hazardous waste sites. The poverty and political disenfranchisement of Native Americans make them more tempting targets than more politically astute and well-funded constituencies.] Protestors at the mine site seem dangerous. Several mining officials have received threatening notes. And now Lauren Cavanaugh, sister of Max, who runs the mine, is missing. Max contacts Cork, an old friend, to ask him to help find her. It turns out he does, along with five other bodies.
Cork is a retired county sheriff and is now a private investigator. He’s a widower with three grown children, and is alone except for the family dog. He is also part Ojibwe. The current sheriff, Marsha Dross, asks him to work for her to help solve the murders; his contacts among the Ojibwe will help greatly.
Eventually Cork is able to solve both mysteries: not only the recent murder of Lauren but the older killings as well. In the course of doing so, however, he requires help from an Ojibwe Medicine Man named Henry Meloux, who, well past ninety years old, has helped out Cork all his life.
Evaluation: The suspense level isn’t particularly high in this book, but I enjoyed it for all of its other positive attributes. I liked the way Krueger was able to portray the emotional state of a man suddenly adrift in life with his wife and children gone. I found the Ojibwe customs interesting, and I really liked learning about mining in a very non-technical way as well.
After
When he looks for this other enterance, he finds a secret room with six dead bodies. Five of them have been there for years but one has recently been placed there. This reminds Cork of The Vanishings.
In 1964, two teenage Indian American women disappeared, then a rich white woman disappeared also. This white woman was Monique Cavanaugh, Lauren's mother.
In a story deep with Indian folk lore, Cork speaks to his ancient friend, Henry Meloux. Despite advancing age, Henry can sense things. He tells Cork that there is unrest in the reservation and tells Cork who to speak to in order to identify the other two bodies found in the mind.
It is interesting that Cork's father was the sheriff when The Vanishings took place. It creates a moral dilemma for Cork to consider if his father was involved with the missing women. Then, Cork makes another discovery that brings the case even closer to him.
As always with William Kent Krueger, there are details about the Ojibwe Indian culture and beliefs. Cork is realistically described and the story is told as if the pieces were put together like parts of a menu that is eventually laid out for the reader to learn and be entertained by its rich detail.
In this book, Cork O’Connor is a private investigator hired to find the person leaving threatening messages for various people involved in the use of a former mine for the storage of nuclear
Now it is Cork’s job not only to learn who is leaving the messages but, also, to help find the person or people who murdered five people 40 years ago (as determined by a forensic anthropologist) and one person a week ago. At first, some mysteries, like whose bones have been there for 40 years, unravel quickly. But did the same person or people kill all six people, the five in 1964 and the one more recently? Do the protest and the protesters outside the mine have anything to do with the recent murder? How are the older murders and the recent murder connected? Why do four of the skeletal remains belong to Indians while one belongs to a white woman who was the mother of the sixth murder victim? Could Cork’s own gun, the gun that was his father’s when he was county sheriff 40 years ago, have been the murder weapon? Why are certain pages cut from Cork’s mother’s 40-year-old journal? These are some of the mysteries Cork must solve.
This is one book in a series about Cork O’Connor, but it doesn’t seem necessary to read the series in order. Krueger explains that Cork’s wife was murdered a year ago; his children are adults now, scattered to various parts of the country; he is part Indian, and his past and present jobs have been and are involved with Indians and the local Indian reservation (the “rez”); and, like his father, he used to be county sheriff. That’s explanation enough.
VERMILION DRIFT is a thriller, with stories within stories within stories and with the answer to one question leading to more questions. It’s better than most bestselling thrillers because it’s not formulaic as so many thrillers are. It is character-driven.
Only one criticism: the old Indian Henry. He knows so much yet will speak only in riddles throughout the book. And Cork reveres him. He just goes along with Henry’s evasiveness and his sometimes corny Indian traditions and rituals that act like pauses in elements of the story that might have been more thrilling.
Even so, readers will enjoy and appreciate this nonformulaic thriller. My criticism is debatable.
The novels are set in rural, northern Minnesota for the most part with the action shifting to The U.P. of Michigan in one story and to Wyoming in another. Mr. Kreuger gives Cork O'Connor a family life that is anything but 'storybook'. From one end to the other this is a loving, but modern family, with real life modern problems that they do manage to get resolved. Fairly early in the series, the stories begin increasingly encompassing Cork's and his family's Native American connection to good advantage!
This is a very good and satisfying series which I gobbled up faster and faster towards the end. Now I have to sit and eagerly await the next Cork O'Connor adventure. This is a series where the books could be read as stand alones, but for maximum enjoyment I would strongly recommend reading them in the order that they were written.
Another great entry in the series. This one covers a serial killer who was active over 40 years ago when Cork was a teenager. The disappearances of his victims were known as "The Vanishings". Now Cork has discovered where the bodies
This book was really different in that Cork was living alone, which hasn't been the case since 'Iron Mountain', the first book in the series. I liked the fact that he was reevaluating his life and his purpose without having his family around. As usual Cork becomes deeply involved in the investigation and the outcome was carefully plotted, if not entirely surprising. Another great book in a consistently fine series.