2-3-4 Challenge discussion

Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor is a former Chicago cop living in the north Minnesota woods.

Series List

About the Author
William Kent Krueger is an American author and crime writer, best known for his Cork O'Connor series of books, which are set mainly in Minnesota, USA. In 2005 and 2006, he won back-to-back Anthony Awards for best novel. In 2014, his stand-alone book Ordinary Grace won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2013.

Krueger has said that he wanted to be a writer from the third grade, when his story, The Walking Dictionary, was praised by his teacher and parents.

He attended Stanford University but his academic path was cut short when he came into conflict with the university's administration during student protests of spring 1970. Throughout his early life, he supported himself by logging timber, digging ditches, working in construction, and being published as a freelance journalist; he never stopped writing.

Krueger wrote short stories and sketches for many years, but it was not until the age of 40 that he finished the manuscript of his first novel, Iron Lake. It won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award.

About the Series
When Krueger decided to set the series in northern Minnesota, he realized that a large percentage of the population was of mixed ancestry. In college, Krueger had wanted to be a cultural anthropologist; he became intrigued by researching the Ojibwe culture and weaving the information into his books. Krueger's books are set in and around Native American reservations. The main character, Cork O'Connor is part Ojibwe and part Irish.

How did Krueger come up with the character? Here's the author's answer in his own words:

"Long before I began to think about writing a mystery, a character began to take shape in my imagination. The first thing I knew about him was that he was going to be the kind of guy who was so resilient that no matter how far down life pushed him, he would always bob back to the surface. His name would be Cork. Because I was about forty then and going through the first of a couple of midlife crises, I imagined him confused about life, maybe in some kind of meltdown, struggling, pushed about as far down as he’d ever been. I saw him as having a family (probably because I had a family and it was easy to imagine). I saw him as a guy ordinary-looking as sidewalk concrete, and not very macho. But I also thought he would be the kind of guy you knew instinctively that you could trust, that if you asked something of him and he gave his word, he would walk through hell barefooted, if necessary, to keep his promise. He wouldn’t be brilliant, but he would be dogged.

"Cork isn’t me, but the way he sees the world and what’s important to him come very much out of who I am. He believes in family. He believes in justice. He believes you make commitments and stand by them. He’s become a wonderfully complex character over the course of ten books, and I’m still learning about him. I’m thinking that even if I write twenty books, he’ll still be able to surprise me."


We will begin reading the series in January, reading one book each month until completion.

1. Iron Lake - January Book Discussion
2. Boundary Waters - February Book Discussion
3. Purgatory Ridge - March Book Discussion
4. Blood Hollow - April Book Discussion
5. Mercy Falls - May Book Discussion
6. Copper River - June Book Discussion
7. Thunder Bay - July Book Discussion
8. Red Knife - August Book Discussion
9. Heaven's Keep - September Book Discussion
10. Vermilion Drift - October Book Discussion
11. Northwest Angle - November Book Discussion
12. Trickster's Point - December Book Discussion
13. Tamarack County - January 2018 Book Discussion
14. Windigo Island - February 2018 Book Discussion
15. Manitou Canyon - March 2018 Book Discussion
16. Sulfur Springs - April 2018 Book Discussion
17. Desolation Mountain - December 2018 Book Discussion

I was just looking up the next book in the series for next month encase there was a wait for it and it's not even in my library. Every other book except this one. I live in a city so there is quite a large number of books accessible. It's just really odd. I usually buy kindle books from Amazon Australia and they only have Mercy Falls in Audio, but not in kindle format. It's a conspiracy ;).

Krueger has another book scheduled for release in late August. It’s added above.

Anyone interested in participating in the book discussion of Desolation Mountain? I finished it a couple of days ago and will set it up if we have any takers.