Review: 'The River We Remember'

 ©2023 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

The River We Remember
By William Kent Krueger
Fiction
September 2023
Atria Books

Love of family, love of the land, love of that one special person are all chronicled in William Kent Krueger's new novel, The River We Remember.

The author of the Cork O'Connor mysteries has long written about the hold of the land and of loved ones on a person's heart. His Minnesota-set novels are people-centered, where what is important to the characters is what guides their actions. In this stand-alone novel, every character acts according to the dictates of their hearts, with consequences both dire and delightful.

Jimmy Quinn, the biggest landowner in the county and the biggest bully, has been found in the Alabaster River. There's a big hole from a shotgun blast in his torso that the river's catfish have found. They've also found his face. But because of his bright red hair and size, Dern and everyone else knows it's him.

The suspects are plentiful, but the focus right away on Dakota Noah Bluestone, who returned to the county after a military career. To some, it's bad enough that he's an Indian. To others, it's even worse because he brought with him a Japanese wife, Kyoko. Noah and his late father worked for Quinn, who had just fired Noah for allegedly stealing gas.

Dern would just as soon have the case be ruled a suicide or accident. But his deputy, and former boss, won't have it. Connie Graff wants the truth to be discovered, knowing the county is going to be torn up regardless of who is guilty.

Also drawn into the events taking place after Quinn's death are Angie Madison, a young war widow whose past has not destroyed her, who now is a beacon of light in the town diner owned by her mother-in-law. Her teenage son, Scott, has a faulty heart physically speaking, yet his spirit is strong and true. Scott's best friend Del and his mother are knocked around by his stepfather, Creasy, a drunk who belongs to a hard-drinking, hardscrabble family. Creasy accused Noah of stealing Quinn's gas.

And then there's Charlie Bauer. Charlie, born Charlotte, was put down constantly by her widowed father. She left town and went to California, where she became a lawyer for the defenseless. She has come back home and occasionally takes on cases of the defenseless, when not reading on her porch or sipping whiskey. She becomes Noah's counsel, but he does not want to enter any plea. He doesn't want to do or say a thing.

Jimmy Quinn's big family also have stories to tell. Or hide.

As the author of terrific mysteries, Krueger handles the whodunit aspects of the story very well. As a writer who also has demonstrated wisdom about the frailties and strengths of the human spirit, Krueger adds the layers that make some mysteries whydunits. The revelations about many characters that the investigation uncovers create a novel that explores both individual characters and the character of a community. Other measures of his strong writing are the pacing keeps all the characters separate, and he anticipates a whodunit reader's ideas about the clues presented.

The prologue is a work of art on its own. Krueger circles back to it in an epilogue. Both are about the lure of home along the river, how the river is a source of wonder, fun, solace and, on occasion, danger. And how we are all are part of a river and we all have a part to play.

Our lives and the lives of those we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end. Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different ...

Those differences, as well as things in common, fit together to be a remarkable story told very well.

Review: 'When You See Me'

©2020 All Rights Reserved Lynne Perednia

When You See Me

By Lisa Gardner

Thriller

Dutton

Cross-over episodes don't always work but when they do, the results let each character shine in new ways. That's the case when D.D. Warren, Flora Dane and Kimberly Quincy team up in Lisa Gardner's When You See Me. 

Human remains are found in a remote woodsy area of northern Georgia. Quincy calls Warren and Dane in when it appears clear the remains are tied to the serial killer who Warren hunted and who Dane, his former prisoner, killed. The action rachets up as soon as the team gets on site, and more gravesites are found in the area. As team members take on different aspects of the investigation, they make discoveries about the case and about themselves.

Their voices are all those of strong women. But theirs are not the only ones. A young woman at the center of the investigation is mute, but her interior thoughts are at the core of this story of discovery and empowerment. She is an integral part of the story behind the story, and to the action itself. 

Gardner's fast-paced narrative encompasses a wide range, and none of the elements trip up any of the others. The forensic details, the interviews of local people, investigating a network of ATV trails, and the dark web all figure into the story. As the pacing builds to the crescendo, the elements fuse together for an unusual ending that absolutely fits.

When You See Me is entertaining and empowering. 

Review: 'The Murder of Harriet Krohn'

The Murder of Harriet Krohn
By Karin Fossum
Crime fiction (Scandinavian)
November 2014
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0544273399

A father writes a heartfelt letter to his estranged daughter. She is clearly the most important thing in his life, the reason, really, that he lives. Why won't she have anything to do with him?

Karin Fossum answers that question and more in The Murder of Harriet Krohn, an absorbing character study and crime novel. The father, Charlo, has had a serious gambling problem. His wife dying of cancer didn't help. He even gambled away the money they had put aside to buy a horse for his darling daughter.

Now that there is the chance his gambling creditors will come after him, Charlo has finally hit bottom. He's got to do something. So he does. He buys flowers and takes the bouquet one late, snowy night to the home of an elderly woman, Harriet Krohn, who lives alone.

Fossum, who often experiments with crime fiction tropes in her novels, next switches the focus to Harriet Krohn. She is small-minded, tightly wound, regimented, a skinflint. She is crippled with arthritis, but she is not a figure of sympathy. When the murder occurs, it's easy to see how the killer, over time, begins to blame the victim. If only she hadn't done this or done that, if only she had just let him take the silver and the cash, and leave.

This is just the beginning of the story. The major portion of the novel deals with what Charlo does after the fact. Will he get away with it? Will he feel guilty? Will he be reconciled with his daughter? And what of the police? Fossum's best character is Inspector Sejer. Is he going to show up?

Without incorporating spoilers, let's just say the rest of the book flies by as suspense grows over these questions. Charlo is a fascinating, flawed character who makes his own problems and is a victim of his choices and what matters to him. This is not a novel in which the author asks the reader to feel pity or empathy for the main character. Rather, it is an examination of what might lead a man to think murder is the only way to solve his problems, and how does someone go on after that happens? For an author who has done unusual things in her novels before, Fossum does not disappoint here. She shows how to let character dictate story. The Murder of Harriet Krohn is a remarkable book by an author who can explore ideas while entertaining.


©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

AS THE CROW FLIES: A Walt Longmire mystery
By Craig Johnson
Crime fiction
May 2012
Viking
ISBN: 978-0670023516
                                                                                                                                                                     
Walt Longmire has survived desperate situations before, but this could be the most dire. His daughter is getting married, and he and Henry Standing Bear have been assigned some of the preparations. When the pair witness a murder while looking for a wedding site in Montana, Longmire doesn't exactly complain about being drawn into the investigation.

The victim is a young Cheyenne woman. She was shielding her baby when she went over a cliff. The child improbably survives with only a few bruises, and the father is the presumed suspect. But in the entangled family relationships, long-held grudges and dealings with drugs, government bureaucracy and war wounds, easy presumptions may well not be enough.

Longmire also comes up against the young tribal chief of police, an Iraq war vet named Lolo. Her attempts to run down every miscreant have her placing Longmire under arrest in their initial meeting.

The revealing of Lolo's character, which shows more depth than small-town, hot-headed rookie cop, is one of the highlights of the novel. So are the appearances of Longmire's daughter, Cady, and her mother-in-law to be, and, of course, the Cheyenne Nation. For those who still haven't warmed up to Vic, she doesn't play a significant role. A certain FBI agent also shows up, for better or for worse.

Johnson also is master of pacing. As with all Longmire novels, they are fast reads but contain a fully realized plot with characters to wonder and care about.

But as with all other Longmire novels, there are parts that still don't feel right. There is the obligatory woo-woo. This time, a milky-eyed older Cheyenne medicine woman invites Longmire to a peyote ceremony. The disbelief has a hard time staying suspended for that, since there are opposing philosophies about allowing whites into these ceremonies. Johnson does a good job showing awareness of what modern life is like on reservations with his characters, what they go through, what they face and how they respond to myriad obstacles. He doesn't have to go the route of Native American mysticism through a white man's perspective for a solid series with a grand cast of continuing characters.

This is especially true when the plot itself is so solid and the action-filled resolution is high adventure without being too much to believe.

©2013 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'An Unmarked Grave'

AN UNMARKED GRAVE: A Bess Crawford Mystery
By Charles Todd
Historical mystery
June 2012
William Morrow

ISBN: 978-0-06-201572-3                                                                                    

Intrepid Bess Crawford is just behind the trenches in wartorn France, tending to the wounded, when the Spanish Influenza strikes in the spring of 1918. In the mdist of the chaos, an orderly notices something wrong with one of the many bodies. He didn't die of war wounds or the flu. His neck was broken.

The orderly informs Bess as someone he trusts. She promises to alert the proper people. She promises not only because she trusts the kindly older man who is the orderly and sees for herself that the dead man was murdered, but also because the victim was a family friend who served in her father's regiment.

But before she can get anywhere, the flu strikes her as well. In the near-fairytale atmosphere in which Bess Crawford exists, she is spirited out of France and convalesces back home as strings are pulled. For Bess Crawford has connections, most importantly her father, the Colonel Sahib.

This imposing figure and dearest family friend Simon are full-fledged confidants as she pieces together bits of information and visits various figures connected to the victim. These figures are representative of various strata in Britain's WWI class system, and as such provide a fascinating picture of people carrying on while the Great War goes on and on and on. Although Bess initially isn't quite believed, it's soon evident that the orderly, who died soon after she was taken ill, showed her something important.

Before long, more people connected with the investigation die. Bess knows the killer will target her, but her sense of duty demands that she continue. And if that means she has to take along with her a brash American officer recovering from his war wounds, that's what she will do. Even if he and Simon don't exactly take to each other. The killer gets closer and closer to Bess and her inner circle before the end, which is a classic case of the sleuth figuring it all out in the nick of time.

The world for Bess that the Todds have created is a genuine homage to the World War I era. The violence is off-screen, the characters do not directly express their feelings for each other (really, how thick are Bess and Simon to not have figured that out?) and duty reigns supreme, the plot unfolds in true tricky Agatha Christie style. The series also has other aspects of the historical era it depicts. There is no irony or nod to modern sensibility in Bess calling her father the Colonel Sahib. Women and lower class folk are expected to know their place. In one of the poignant stories told during the unveiling of the plot, a widower father who has lost several sons to the war doesn't understand why the widow of one of them won't come work the farm. Her son would grow up in fresh air but the workload would obviously kill her.

Downton Abbey fans would be well served by reading the Bess Crawford novels while waiting for a new season. Fans of Inspector Rutledge, the first series character brought to life by the Todds, will find a lighter version of the tone in that post-war series.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Return of Captain John Emmett'

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN JOHN EMMETT
By Elizabeth Speller
Historical crime fiction                                                                                
July 2011
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0547511696

The end of World War I was a traumatic time for Britain, even though they won. Hundreds of thousands of men died, and more than a million came back wounded. Family dynamics changed, the roles of women changed, everyone who survived sought ways to carry on and cope with a world that had changed around them. At the same time, the Golden Age in mystery fiction began.

Elizabeth Speller brings all of these elements together in her debut novel, The Return of Captain John Emmett. It's a wonderful story that sheds light on the engimatic title character, the narrator who searches for the truth about Capt. Emmett's last days, the changes in British society and what happens when people think they're doing favors by not telling the truth.

Laurence Bartram is one young officer trying to put his life back together after the year. His wife and newborn son died while he was off fighting. Back in London, he's trying to write a book but is as diffident about it as he is about everything else. He learns of the suicide of a former school mate, John Emmett, who returned from the war a broken man. John's sister wants to know more about John's final days, so she enlists Laurie's help. Since he's so obviously at loose ends, and wants to be a decent chap, he agrees to see what he can find out.

Review: 'Shut Your Eyes Tight'

SHUT YOUR EYES TIGHT
By John Verdon
Crime fiction
July 2011
Crown
ISBN: 978-0307717894

Dave Guerney's second outing follows the same lines as his debut, Think of a Number. Guerney, a celebrated homicide detective whose wife wants him to stay retired, is tantalized by a seemingly impossible crime scene. In this case, a bridegroom enters a tiny cottage at his wedding ceremony to discover his new bride has been decapitated. It's all on videotape, yet the person who the victim went to see is never seen leaving the cottage.

Verdon's formula continues with Guerney promising his patient, passive-aggressive wife that he isn't cheating on her with his love of detection and that the quiet country life she adores is just what he wants as well. The reader knows Guerney's lying the minute he meets the psychiatric genius who was the bridegroom. He wants to step in and solve the case.

Review: 'Tigerlily's Orchids'

TIGERLILY'S ORCHIDS
By Ruth Rendell
Crime fiction
June 2011
Scribner
ISBN: 978-1439150344

A quiet little corner of London may look like the kind of place where nothing ever happens. But Ruth Rendell knows better in her latest stand-alone novel, Tigerlily's Orchids. Not much is as it seems, other things are what they seem, only more so, and it never pays to make assumptions.