I started reading this series a little while ago with a mystery buddy read group on Goodreads and so far I like it a lot. The first book, although a little rocky at times for me really held my attention. I wasn't crazy about how Cork's wife was portrayed and wondered why the author chose to make her so unlikable when he intended to keep her around for the rest of the series. She does some incredibly stupid things in the first book, so she's had to grow on me as a character in subsequent books. It's been a slow process, and so far I like her sister, Rose much better.
I think the set up for the mysteries in these books is really good, but sometimes the execution of the stories haven't been as good as they could have been. I like Cork's mix of the Native American and Irish ancestry, and the Native American lore and culture that's included. It reminds me slightly of Longmire, the TV show. I have no idea how much that show actually resembles the books since I haven't read them yet, but I like the Native American elements in that show.
Overall I'm liking this series and it's gotten better as I've read on. Here are my ratings for the first 4 books in the series:
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, some descriptions of sex acts, off page sex
Part Irish, part
Anishinaabe Indian, Cork is having difficulty dealing with the marital
meltdown that has separated him from his children, getting by on heavy
doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt.
Once a cop on Chicago’s
South Side, there’s not much that can shock him. But when the town’s
judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing,
Cork takes on this complicated and perplexing case of conspiracy,
corruption, and a small-town secret that hits painfully close to home.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language
The Quetico-Superior
Wilderness: more than two million acres of forest, white-water rapids,
and uncharted islands on the Canadian/American border. Somewhere in the
heart of this unforgiving territory, a young woman named Shiloh -- a
country-western singer at the height of her fame -- has disappeared. Her
father arrives in Aurora, Minnesota, to hire Cork O'Connor to find his
daughter, and Cork joins a search party that includes an ex-con, two FBI
agents, and a ten-year-old boy. Others are on her trail as well -- men
hired not just to find her, but to kill her.
As the expedition
ventures deeper into the wilderness, strangers descend on Aurora,
threatening to spill blood on the town's snowy streets. Meanwhile, out
on the Boundary Waters, winter falls hard. Cork's team of searchers
loses contact with civilization, and like the brutal winds of a
Minnesota blizzard, death -- violent and sudden -- stalks them.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language
Not far from the small
town of Aurora (population 3,752) lies an ancient two-hundred-acre
expanse of great white pines, sacred to the Anishinaabe and known to
them as Minishoomisag (Our Grandfathers).
Wealthy industrialist
Karl Lindstrom does not have a reputation as a sensitive
environmentalist, and some members of the Anishinaabe tribe are
concerned about the proximity of the trees to his lumber mill. So when
an explosion at the mill results in the death of a night watchman, it's
obvious whom suspicion will fall upon.
Cork O'Connor, in the
throes of straightening out his life and repairing his marriage, is
asked by his successor as sheriff to help with the investigation. His
sense of community obliges him to accept, but Cork has distinctly mixed
feelings about the case. For one thing, he is part Anishinaabe himself.
For another, his lawyer wife, Jo, represents the tribe.
Meanwhile,
in a secluded house that overlooks the lakeside home of the Lindstrom
family, a reclusive shipwreck survivor and his sidekick also seem to be
harboring some resentment of their own against the industrialist. And it
soon becomes clear to Cork that harmony, both at home and in the town,
will be on the back burner for some time.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Strong language, off page sex
When the corpse of a
beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months
after her disappearance on New Year's Eve, all evidence points to her
boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon. Despite Solemn's
self-incriminating decision to go into hiding, Cork O'Connor, Aurora's
former sheriff, isn't about to hang the crime on the kid, whom O'Connor
is convinced is innocent. In an uphill battle to clear Solemn's name,
Cork encounters no shortage of adversity. Some he knows all too well --
small-town bigotry and bureaucracy foremost among them. What Cork isn't
prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment hailing from his
own childhood. And when Solemn reappears, claiming to have seen a
vision of Jesus Christ in Blood Hollow, the mystery becomes thornier
than Cork could ever have anticipated. And that's when the miracles
start happening....
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