William Kent Krueger's latest Cork O'Connor mystery, Desolation Mountain (#784) is a nifty blend of political maneuvering and Ojibwa culture set in northern Minnesota.
Young Stephen O'Connor is greatly troubled by a vision in which he watches a boy shoot down an eagle from the sky, while he senses a fearsome monster at his back. When a Senator's plane crashes at nearby Desolation Mountain, killing everyone on board, Stephen knows there is a connection to his vision, but he feels powerless to have prevented it, or the aftermath.
Since Senator McCarthy was visiting Aurora to hold a town meeting concerning the application to re-open mines in the area, tempers are flaring between those who favor a return to former prosperous times in the area, and those equally set on preserving the wilderness of Boundary Waters National Park, and the untouched area of the Iron Lake Ojibwa reservation. There are plenty who have motives to wish harm to the Senator.
When the Indians closest to the crash site are the first to arrive and begin looking for survivors, Cork and Stephen O'Connor among them, but they are quickly ousted from the woods and bog as the FBI and a number of other mysterious governmental agencies arrive and take over. No one, including the sheriff, seems to know exactly who is in charge, but they don't seem to be asking the right people the expected questions, and when those witnesses begin to disappear, Cork O'Connor doesn't know who he can trust to find out what is happening in their remote county.
It's an enthralling read which will keep you guessing right up to the last page.
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