William Kent Krueger is a prolific and well honored writer whose main mystery series, now with 19 books, features the fictional Cork O'Connor, an Ojibwe-Irish man living in northern Minnesota who starts the series as the local sheriff.
Kent's latest book, The River We Remember, is a mystery with a new main character, but it has taken him on the road from Texas and Louisiana back home here to Minnesota for the book tour.
We sent a few quick questions to Kent, who snuck time to respond while still on his travels.
LSM: What particularly pleased you about this book or plot? (I'm assuming the story might take a few of its own turns ... but is that true for your writing?)
WKK: This manuscript was a difficult challenge. It took me over six years to get it right. What pleased me is that I didn't give up on it. (As an author, you never throw anything away.) Despite the long gestation period, the issue at the heart of the story remained strong and the plot engaging. That was enormously satisfying.
LSM: It looks like you are on a nationwide tour ... is that usual for your books? Do people in Texas and Louisiana even know about northern Minnesota? Can they understand you when you speak Minnesotan?
WKK: The tour is a bit more aggressive than most have been. I wanted to reach as many readers personally as I could. And the reception everywhere has been phenomenal. Even folks on the West Coast or South or Southeast, although they may never have been to Minnesota, seem to find the setting compelling. Am I exhausted? Yes. Am I glad I've done such an extensive tour? Absolutely.
LSM: What's up for you after the touring in terms of your next work?
WKK: I've finished the first draft of the next novel in the Cork O'Connor series. It will be titled Spirit Crossing and should be out late next summer or early fall.
Meanwhile, here is the book description for The River We Remember. The book can be found at your local booksellers:
On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minn., gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder, but also to put to rest the demons from his own past.
Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.
Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of midcentury American life from an author of novels “as big-hearted as they come” (Parade), The River We Remember is an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.