William Kent Krueger, Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay

Atria, July 2007, $24.00, 288 pp.

ISBN 0743278410

After being through with police work, Cork O'Conner runs Sam's Place, a takeout joint, and during the winter months he has a private detective's license. His good friend Henry Meloux is hospitalized and asks him to find the son he met in visions, a child he helped conceive over eighty years ago. A little digging on the internet leads him to Toronto native Henry Wellington, whose father made Northern Mining and Manufacturing a wealthy and powerful company.

Meloux asks Cork to meet with his son and give him a watch with his mother's picture in it. Although it is hard to see the recluse, he manages to meet with him, but Wellington is unmoved by his story. Meloux, who is out of the hospital, is attacked by Wellington's bodyguard, but the old man kills him. He then asks Cork to take him to meet the son whose visions say he needs him and serve as backup when they finally meet. This meeting upsets someone who is willing to kill to keep some secrets buried.

Any time a Cork O'Connor book is published it is a time for rejoicing. Meloux is an Ojibwe medicine man, whose visions always come true, so Cork believes him when he insists his son needs him. THUNDER BAY is a story of family secrets, greed and murder, past and present with Cork risking his life to help Meloux. A flashback that tells the tale of Meloux and Henry's mother is fascinating, as the characters make THUNDER BAY a wonderful tale of suspense and mystery.