Trickster's Point [a novel]

Review by Booklist Review

In Ojibwe legend, Trickster's Point is a monolith known for causing confusion among hunters. This legend fits Krueger's latest Cork O'Connor mystery, since it revolves around a hunt gone terribly awry and the many false clues and leads it produces, leading to big-time confusion. At novel's opening, former sheriff's office investigator and current private eye O'Connor is sitting next to a dying man on Trickster's Point. Before suffering his grievous wound, the man, Jubal Little, was about to become the first Native American governor-elect of Minnesota. Now Little has an arrow through his heart, and O'Connor can't decide whether to seek help, leaving Little to die, or pull the arrow out. O'Connor becomes the prime suspect after it's discovered that the arrow and its particular pattern are his. O'Connor must clear himself of the crime and investigate the enigma of Little's past. In addition to having a plot as cunningly treacherous as Trickster's Point itself, Krueger's latest mystery has that elegiac tone that's perfectly suited to O'Connor's character and to the harsh landscape where he lives and works.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In the prologue of Anthony Award-winner Krueger's fine 12th Cork O'Connor novel (after 2011's Northwest Angle), politician Jubal Little, who most likely would've won election as Minnesota's first Native American governor in a few days, takes three hours to die with an arrow in his chest-an arrow that belongs to his old friend, Cork, with whom he'd been bow hunting. As Cork seeks answers to such questions as who wanted to kill Jubal and who wanted to frame him for the murder, the narrative charts Jubal's rise from high school athlete to NFL star, from U.S. representative to leading candidate for governor of Minnesota. Cork finds many suspects among the enemies Jubal made over the years, in particular those who disagreed with Jubal's politics. A second puzzling killing muddies the water more. Krueger's intimate knowledge of Minnesota's northern reaches and respect for Native American life, ancient and modern, provide an intricate setting for this gem of a mystery. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary Associates. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

A hunting trip goes horribly wrong when Minnesota's governor-elect is murdered with Cork O'Connor's arrow. The detective becomes the number-one suspect in his 12th outing (after Northwest Angle). [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/12.] (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The murder of a rising political star who just happens to be one of his oldest friends lands Minnesota private eye Corcoran O'Connor in the hot seat. Even though he wanted to go for help, Cork agreed to sit with Jubal Little for three hours after their backwoods deer hunt was cut short when his old schoolmate was shot by an arrow that closely resembled the arrows Cork made for himself. He listened to Jubal ramble about his romance with their mutual friend Winona Crane, his foreshortened run for the Senate and the mysterious Rhiannon, whose fate was "the worst sin of all." Now all of Cork's friends and former colleagues in the Tamarack County sheriff's office suspect Cork of shooting Jubal. Even Jubal assumed that Cork had fired the fatal arrow. Determined to clear himself, Cork makes the rounds of alternative suspects--Jubal's politically connected widow, Camilla, and her family, Ojibwe activist Isaiah Broom, logger Buzz Bigby, whose bullying son, Donner, met a bad end after one last run-in with Jubal many years ago--with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop, though he can't catch eternal wild-child Winona, who's taken a powder once again. More revealingly, Krueger interleaves the present-day story with a series of flashbacks that trace the winding steps in Cork's relationship with his old friend, whose charm, warmth, wide range of skills and iron ambition made him easy to like but hard to love. The climactic revelations, if they aren't exactly surprising, are as logical as they are poignant. Krueger's 12th (Northwest Angle, 2011, etc.) is alternately muscular and tender, and maybe a tad synthetic--middling for this fine series.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Trickster's Point PROLOGUE The dying don't easily become the dead. Even with an arrow in his heart, Jubal Little took three hours to die. Politician that he was, most of that time he couldn't stop talking. At first, he talked about the arrow. Not how it got there--he believed he knew the answer to that--but arguing with Cork over whether to try to pull it out or push it through. Corcoran O'Connor did neither. Then he talked about the past, a long and convoluted rambling punctuated by moments of astonishing self-awareness. He admitted he'd made mistakes. He told Cork things he swore he'd never told anyone else, told them in a way that made Cork feel uncomfortably like Jubal's confessor. Finally he talked about what lay ahead. He wasn't afraid to die, he said. And he said that he understood the situation, understood why Cork had put that arrow in his heart. He died sitting up, his back against hard rock, his big body gray in the long shadow cast by the imposing monolith known as Trickster's Point. If the political polls were correct, in just a few days Jubal Little would have won a landslide victory as the new governor of Minnesota. Cork had known Jubal Little all his life and, for some of those years, had thought of him as a best friend. Even so, he'd planned to mark his ballot for another man on election day. Partly it was because Jubal wanted different things for Minnesota and the North Country and the Ojibwe than Cork wanted. But mostly it was because Jubal Little was absolutely capable of murder, and Cork O'Connor was the only one who knew it. Excerpted from Trickster's Point by William Kent Krueger All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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