by William Kent Kruger, 2021, Atria Books, New York

This book is a prequel to the Corcoran O’Connor series by William Kent Krueger. The author takes us back to a time when Cork was twelve years old and his father, Liam, was the sheriff. Cork gets involved in a murder of a respected Indian whose death is made to look like a suicide.

The book has much lore of the Ojibwa Indians in Northern Minnesota and the strained relationship between the white residents and the Indians on the reservation. The spiritualism of the American Indian is also included. The slow pace of the book (almost glacial at times) makes it a bit of a chore to get through, however. If the pace of the story had unfolded a bit quicker, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more.