Heaven's Keep

This is a dense, emotionally packed novel that fully illuminates the author's talent and command of his material. Krueger frequently remarks that he writes about family relationships and about Northern Minnesota. In Heaven's Keep readers get both in spades. But there's more. Here, Cork O'Conner is forced to go out of his comfort zone, the mythical Aurora, Minnesota and journey to Wyoming, to a forbidding and lonely part of the state at the edge of the Rocky Mountains during a stormy time of year. The catalyst is that Cork's wife Jo, an attorney, is flying by private charter to Seattle for a conference of Native American leaders. The plane disappears and the early part of the novel deals with the agony and frustration of not knowing the fate of the passengers. Krueger's intelligent and intriguing twist on the plot is that Cork and Jo parted on testy terms at the Aurora airport. They were arguing about O'Connor's future, and the future of Sam's Place, Cork's burger shack on the shores of Iron Lake. Thus, O'Connor's grief over Jo's loss is compounded and when, much later new and unsettling information about the pilot of the plane surfaces, the O'Connor family is thrown into new emotional turmoil. Throughout this book, Krueger's control of the plot, the character changes, and the family relationships, is sure handed and, for the most part will be satisfying to the reader. This is a novel that deserves a wide readership. It is one that is satisfying in all its elements, and will stay with readers well after the final page.

Like a good mystery? This is worth reading. It truly captures the grief and horror when a spouse dies unexpectedly. And worse, when you have had a rather normal day when petty little things kept your goodbye from being as loving as it might have been. A good wake up call for us all. The main character is well portrayed as human with normal frailties and behaviors. As he tries to adapt to the loss of his wife and to help his children through the tragedy, he is suddenly confronted with the fact that it might easily have been murder. Perhaps worse, it might not even have been just because of who she was but because of who was on the plane at the time. When the wife of the alleged pilot of the plane that crashed comes to him with an improbably story about that it was NOT her husband who piloted that plane but that he is missing, the story goes in a totally different direction. Plots and subplots abound and make the story one you won't want to put down. Be sure to read this.

The ninth book in the Cork O'Connor series, I wished I had been able to read the previous books first just to get to know the characters better. Not that this book can't stand on it's own, but I could sense while reading it that I would have enjoyed the prior stories and would have felt more intensely with the characters when their wife and mother airplane disappeared during a blizzard. Having what I can only assume to have been one of the major characters in this series disappear in the first chapter of the book, meant I never got to know her well. This was a very interesting book as the first half of the book dealt with the disappearance of the charter plane that Cork's wife and numerous Native America men were on as they headed for a conference on Indian affairs. Cork and his wife Jo had argued prior to her leaving so he had the anguish of the last words they had spoken were not words of love but of anger. Cork and his son Stephen head for Rockies to see what they can do towards helping in the search for the downed plane. Stephen is taking his first rocky steps to manhood as the search for his mom continues and he experiences a vision of where she might be. Eventually though, they are all forced to give up the search as continued blizzards makes searching and finding a downed plane impossible. Six months later, the pilots grieving widow comes to Cork to ask him to help clear her husbands name. He had been videotaped drinking heavily the night before the flight and she did not want his legacy to be that of a `drunken Indian'. The first private eye she hired has disappeared and now she is desperate. The more Cork investigate the more odd things that turn up. What appeared at be a routine airplane crash now has people dying and strange `accidents' happening. His investigation takes him from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains and eventually ends in Mexico. A wonderfully well written, interesting book. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good mystery and also likes to read and learn more about America's Native American Indian population.

I read a lot, and, mostly, I read mysteries. A lot of people dismiss these novels and I really don't understand why. "Heaven's Keep" is a perfect example of a book with tight, evocative, driving prose; a page-turner that keeps you glued to your seat (I actually did finish it in one sitting -- it was that good); characters that seem more real than many of your co-workers; and meaningful relationships and values. Heaven's Keep takes us out of the north country in Minnesota to the wilds of the Absaroka mountains in Wyoming. Jo O'Connor, wife to protagonist Corcoran O'Connor, was on a small plane that has disappeared there. Cork and his son, Stephen, go to Wyoming to try to find out what has happened to her. The Wyoming Arapaho and the local lawmen provide a similar environment to the ones in which we've found Cork in the past, although Cork's family and Ojibwe Mide, Henry Meloux, also play strong parts. This is Krueger's best yet, and that's saying something. I look forward to clearing my calendar for many more by this author!

As for me, I considedr this absolutely the best Cork O'Conner novel yet.After a bitter family argument, Jo O'Conner takes a charter flight with George LeDuc and representatives from other Native American tribes to take part at the annual conference of the National Congress of American Indians. The flight goes down during a snowstorm over the Wyoming Rockies. Cork flies to the area and joins in the search for the plane which finally is assumed to have crashed. As the searchers fail to find the plane and speculate that it has been covered with snow, Cork is forced to accept that she must have been killed in the crash and is especially bitter when it appears that the pilot was in fact still under the influence of alcohol while flying the craft. Months later, the pilot's widow and her lawyer approch Cork and convince him that it wasn't her husband in control. After investigation, it appears that indeed, the true story of the plane's fate is being covered up.While the reader hopes that Jo indeed survived, Cork refuses to hold out hope, but is determined to discover what really happened and track down those responsible for the tragedy.Krueger keeps us in excruciating suspense and of course, Cork finds himself not knowing who he can trust and who he can't. The twists are plentiful and well executed. The author is at his best as he portrays the grieving Cork O'Conner who has no hope of finding Jo alive while we as readers are sure that she must have somehow survived.I'm sure there will be many critical of how the story is resolved, but I found it completely believable and if not altogether satisfying, still the most provocative story in the series yet. It will be a very long year or so for me as I wait for the next Cork O'Conner novel.