He knows only too well that with each passing hour time is running out. Desperate, Cork begins tracking the killers but his own skills as a hunter are severely tested by nightfall and a late season snowstorm. Meanwhile, in Aurora, Cork works feverishly to identify the hunters and the reason for their relentless pursuit, but he has little to go on. On the last journey he may ever take into this beloved land, Meloux must do his best to outwit the deadly mercenaries who follow. Meloux guides this stranger and his great niece, Cork O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, his home for more than a century. But peace is destined to elude him as hunters fill the woods seeking a woman named Dolores Morriseau, a stranger who had come to the healer for shelter and the gift of his wisdom. As he walks the Northwoods in solitude, he tries to prepare himself peacefully for the end of his long life. The ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux has had a vision of his death. (Aug.The New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series returns with this “genuinely thrilling and atmospheric novel” ( The New York Times Book Review) as Cork races against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Brown & Miller Literary Assoc. Not just regional mystery fans will be enthralled. Krueger skillfully blends an evocative look at nature’s beauty and peril with Native American lore. Meanwhile, Cork and Dolores’s brother-in-law, Anton, a tribal cop, follows the killers. Henry uses his highly developed sense of mysticism to lead Dolores and Rainy deep into the Boundary Waters wilderness to escape two killers pursuing the women.

Dolores later confirms that the stranger is not her husband, Louis, who has been missing.

Henry is indeed with Dolores, who’s having a cleansing sweat under the guidance of Cork’s wife, Rainy, who’s also Henry’s great-niece. Cork immediately knows something is wrong, because his friend Henry, an Ojibwe healer, is more than 100 years old. Louis wants the PI to find his wife, Dolores, who he believes is having an affair with Henry Meloux. In Edgar winner Krueger’s outstanding 19th mystery featuring PI Cork O’Connor of Minnesota’s Tamarack County (after 2021’s Lightning Strike), Cork is tending the grill at his burger joint when he’s approached by a stranger who introduces himself as Louis Morriseau.

Fox creek william kent krueger