Blood Hollow

The fourth installment in William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor mystery series opens in January in the frozen Northwoods of Minnesota. Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor, a former Tamarack County sheriff of Irish and Ojibwe descent who runs a lakeside burger stand called Sam's Place, volunteers with Search and Rescue to find Charlotte Kane. The seventeen-year-old disappeared on New Year's Eve after an unchaperoned party at Valhalla, her father Dr. Fletcher Kane's remote retreat. She left alone on a snowmobile, intoxicated, and heavy snowfall erased her trail. As a blizzard closes in, Cork defies orders and pushes on alone. Crossing Fisheye Lake in a whiteout, he glimpses a gray, wraith-like figure that seems to guide him back to his lost snowmobile. He senses the shape is Charlotte, though he cannot explain why. Back home, his daughter Jenny reveals that Charlotte's private poems were dark and fixated on death and suicide.

Three months later, hikers discover Charlotte's body near Valhalla on melting snow beside a wrecked snowmobile. Cork and Father Mal Thorne, the parish priest of St. Agnes, follow deputies to the scene. Cork notices troubling details: Charlotte has no gloves, and a Corona beer bottle that is not a twist-off sits nearby, raising the question of how it was opened. Sheriff Arne Soderberg, a politically ambitious newcomer with no law enforcement experience, dismisses Cork's observations. Cork locates Fletcher Kane at Valhalla, drunk and possibly contemplating arson after learning an autopsy will be performed. He persuades Fletcher that the procedure could reveal whether someone was with Charlotte when she died. Fletcher remains hostile toward the O'Connor name: When both men were thirteen, Fletcher's father killed himself after Cork's father, then the sheriff, investigated him for sexual assault.

Suspicion falls on Solemn Winter Moon, Charlotte's nineteen-year-old Ojibwe ex-boyfriend with a history of impulsive violence. Cork finds Solemn hiding at the cabin of his late great-uncle Sam Winter Moon, who had been Cork's own mentor, and urges him to talk to the sheriff. Jo O'Connor, Cork's wife and a lawyer, interviews Solemn, who reveals Charlotte broke up with him to see someone else, possibly a married man. He admits arguing with her at the party but denies killing her and has no alibi for the critical hours. At the sheriff's department, Soderberg presents damning evidence: The autopsy showed a skull fracture from a blunt weapon and signs of rape. Solemn's fingerprints cover the Corona bottle, and a wrench etched with his initials, bearing Charlotte's blood, was found in the guesthouse. Solemn panics, punches Deputy Randy Gooding, a former FBI agent who heads the St. Agnes youth program, and flees.

Weeks later, Cork finds Solemn with Henry Meloux, an ancient Mide, or member of the Ojibwe Grand Medicine Society, who lives alone on Crow Point. Meloux guided Solemn through giigwishimowin, the traditional vision quest marking passage into manhood. After 16 days of fasting in a hollow called Blood Hollow, Solemn saw Jesus walk out of the forest. Jesus told him He understood being accused of a crime you did not commit and that all things occurred for a purpose. Solemn is profoundly transformed. Cork brings him in, and Jo, moved by the peace in Solemn's eyes, reluctantly agrees to represent him. A grand jury indicts Solemn for first-degree murder.

Cork investigates Charlotte's background. A school psychologist tells him Charlotte's symptoms, including depression, a suicide attempt, and compulsive sexual behavior, are classic indicators of long-term sexual abuse, typically by a family member. Cork begins to suspect Fletcher Kane, whom Charlotte's friend Tiffany Soderberg describes as "creepy," always watching his daughter. On Memorial Day, thousands of rose petals appear on Charlotte's grave beneath an angel monument that weeps tears of blood, triggering national attention. Believers gather outside the jail, and a family from Warroad brings their son, who uses a wheelchair, hoping Solemn's touch will heal him. Two apparent healings are exposed as fraudulent, angering the community.

Cork traces phone calls to Valhalla on the night Charlotte died, and the trail leads to Sheriff Soderberg. Jo confronts him with evidence of his affair with Charlotte and threatens to compel DNA testing. Soderberg admits the affair but produces a gas station receipt placing him in Aurora by 1:27 a.m. He resigns and reveals the rose petals were his gesture, arranged through his family's trucking company. He denies knowledge of the blood tears.

The Iron Lake Ojibwe tribal council bails Solemn out with casino funds. During the chaotic release, the Warroad family thrusts their son before Solemn; he touches the boy's head, but nothing visible happens. Meanwhile, Fletcher Kane grows increasingly menacing, offering Cork $20,000 for Solemn's location. Annie, Cork's fifteen-year-old daughter, reports being stalked by a tall figure. Cork calls the Worthington Clinic in California, where Kane once practiced, and learns that a Charlotte Kane murder investigation took place there four years earlier. He flies to Pomona and discovers the real Charlotte disappeared in California; her body was never found. Kane's ex-wife Constance confirms the Aurora girl resembles but is not her daughter.

Cork visits Glory Kane at a Catholic retreat center in Iowa, where she reveals her real name is Cordelia Diller. She once worked in Las Vegas procuring young runaways for wealthy men. A girl called Maria became the property of a mobster who crushed her cheekbone when she tried to escape. Fletcher, a gifted plastic surgeon, altered Maria's face to resemble his dead daughter, gave Cordelia the identity of his deceased sister, and moved them all to Aurora. He tried to make Maria become Charlotte but could never accept her as a separate person. Cordelia confirms she was with Fletcher the entire night Maria disappeared, clearing him.

Cork visits Solemn at Blood Hollow, where the young man has recovered his spiritual peace. Solemn presses his hand against Cork's chest, wishing Cork could feel the certainty of God's presence. Cork warns him about Kane's threat, but Solemn instead drives to the Kane estate. Cork arrives to find Kane dead from a self-inflicted shotgun blast and Solemn dying on the floor, his chest shredded by buckshot. Cork cradles Solemn as the young man touches Cork's chest one last time, then dies. Cork weeps, grieving as he would for a son.

Reviewing the autopsy reports, Cork realizes someone else consumed the large meal set on Kane's table that night. Annie's joke about sin eating triggers his memory that Mal Thorne taught the concept to the St. Agnes youth group. A Chicago investigator uncovers that Mal was previously linked to murders involving ritual feasting, and Cork initially suspects him. Then further evidence points to Gooding. Born Jimmy Crockett at an orphanage where Mal served as surrogate father, Gooding clinically died as a child when his mother drove off a bridge and interpreted his revival as resurrection for a divine purpose. Fanatically devoted to church doctrine, he killed those he perceived as sinners, then consumed their sins in a ritual feast. Cork deduces that Charlotte was among his victims.

Gooding lures Rose McKenzie, Cork's sister-in-law and the woman Mal has grown to love, to St. Agnes Church and takes her hostage with a hunting knife, intending to kill her for seducing Mal from the priesthood. Mal enters and tries to reason with him. Cork positions himself with his revolver but cannot get a clean shot. Then clouds part and sunlight bursts through the stained glass window behind the altar, striking Gooding in the face. Blinded, he releases Rose. Cork fires twice, and Gooding falls. Mal administers Last Rites.

In July, the Warroad family returns: Their son Jamie can now walk and speak, crediting Solemn's touch. Mal departs Aurora to work through his crisis of faith and his feelings for Rose. The county commissioners prepare to offer Cork the sheriff's badge. Before accepting, he enters St. Agnes for the first time in years, sits in the confessional, and begins: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."