Copper River by William Kent Kreuger

 

This is a pretty early Cork O'Connor novel--copyright 2006--and while it has Krueger's typical humanity and grace, it does not have anything like as much of the Ojibwe ... mysticism in it as the more recent entries. Cork's life is always full of tragedies and sorrows, though there are often joys as counterpoint, that remains constant. The writing is as solid, pacing and character and setting all just about pitch-perfect. It's an interesting novel in that what feels like the primary thread at the beginning mostly disappears until right near the end, just because there's a local situation that seems more urgent (and probably is). Also, the killing of an injured and arguably out-of-place cougar that's in the process of attacking a helpless (bound and gagged) teenager ends up feeling just about as tragic as any of the homicides in the novel, which ... I thought was probably pretty good, but I can see how someone might find it kinda offputting.