Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger #bookreview #audiobook #series

I borrowed the audiobook from the library.

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: January 31, 2007

 

Summary:

When a high school student’s body is found and her boyfriend goes missing, tough-as-nails former sheriff Cork O’Connor is forced into the center of an eerie mystery with a shocking twist in this “vivid and realistic” ( Booklist ), Anthony Award-winning novel from New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger.

When the body 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 isn’t about to hang the crime on a kid he’s convinced is innocent.

In an uphill battle to clear Solemn’s name, Cork encounters no shortage of adversity. Some—like bigotry and bureaucracy—he knows all too well. What Cork isn’t prepared for is the emergence of a long-held resentment 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.

 

My thoughts:

The 4th book in William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to start this series. I just love how atmospheric these books are and what a strong sense of place each book has. I’ve never been to Minnesota before, but these books sure have me wanting to go visit!

One of my favorite aspects of these books is the continued character development and in this particular installment, not only do we get that for Cork, but we also get that for his family, especially his sister-in-law, Rose. We get a lot more time with them than we have so far. We also get more development of some of the townspeople, especially Sam Winter Moon and Henry Meloux. These are some influential people in Cork’s life and I loved getting to know them a little more.

I also loved that this book had a bit of a longer time-line than the previous books. It starts in the winter and ends sometime in the summer. That just seems symbolic in a way. There is also the intersection of spiritually – that practiced by the Native Americans – and the Christian faith. I found this to be quite fascinating.

The classic whodunnit with the bad-boy being pegged for the crime kept me intrigued, especially with all the red herrings and twists that the author throws at us. Combine that with everything else I’ve mentioned and you have yourself one heck of an engaging story, dark though it might be.

 

Audio thoughts:

I was thrilled to see that David Chandler was narrating this as he had narrated the previous three books. He is consistent with the voices, making it easy to fall back into the story with ease.

 

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