Corks oldest friend is shot with an arrow and Cork is the prime suspect ( )

While bow hunting alone with Cork a rising politician
is killed with a bow shot. At first O’Connor is accussed of being the shooter. Partly to clear his own name and partly from personal intensity Cork works to figure out hwho the shooter was. We learn of one of Jubal, a childhood friend of Corks who is one of those multitalented people who can accomplish everything he wants to. Cork feels he has been set up as the shooter. His invbestigation reveals the character of the man shot and his family as well as 2 other childhood friends of Cork: Willie and Winona. Trickster’s point is where Jubal was shot and dies. It was also the site of a location where Jubal and Cork had a showdown with a bully.
There are at least three mysteries tangled together and each has its own solution - albeit there are threads linking all. ( )

I love this series - it is so readable, so informative, so gooooood. Each installment sheds more background and history and ties in beautifully. William Kent Krueger is a Master storyteller. ( )

I was very disappointed when author William Kent Krueger killed off the wife of his main character in book #9 (Heaven's Keep) because they had a special relationship, not perfect by any means, but a certain yin-yang thing, whereby they filled in the holes in the other. Several books later, Cork O'Connor seems to have found a new soulmate in Henry Meloux's niece, Rainy. Here is a wonderful summary of Cork's character from Rainy: "[Uncle Henry] says you are like a dog who can't remember where he's buried his bone. You just keep digging until you find it." Elsewhere in the book, his daughter Jenny quotes her mother in describing Cork as a windbreak or her son's native Ojibwe word, Ogichidaa: "someone who [stands] between his people and bad things."

This book is about the murder of Cork's lifelong friend, Jubal Little, who is running for governor at Trickster's Point (a/k/a Tricky's Dick or Nanaboozhoo's Penis), a 150-foot stone nestled in the northwoods. The two friends have some ancient history there, as a boyhood nemesis fell to his death there following the rape of their close friend. Cork is suspected of the deed as the arrow is manmade in the Cork's precise style, and he refuses to get help because his friend does not want to be left alone to die.

Over the course of the novel, and Cork's investigation, much secret history is revealed about Cork, Jubal, and their raped friend, Winona. As always, Cork solves the mystery, revealing only as much as he feels is necessary ... in the spirit of medicine man (Mide), Henry Meloux. ( )

Really enjoyed this one!! ( )