Boundary Waters

The second installment in the Cork O'Connor mystery series opens with a man called Milwaukee torturing an old Ojibwe man bound between birch trees, hired by a nervous, unnamed client trying to force the elder to reveal the location of a woman. A huge, shaved-headed accomplice watches. The old man refuses to speak.

In a remote cabin deep in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a vast stretch of forest, lakes, and rivers along the Minnesota-Canadian border, an unnamed woman grows worried. Wendell Two Knives, the Ojibwe elder who has been bringing her food and supplies, is three days overdue.

Cork O'Connor, a former sheriff of Tamarack County who now runs a burger stand called Sam's Place on Iron Lake, is approached by William Raye, better known as Arkansas Willie, a former country music TV host and current owner of Ozark Records. Raye reveals that his daughter Shiloh, a famous country singer, has vanished. He has been receiving weekly letters from her postmarked from Aurora, Minnesota, but the letters stopped two weeks ago. Shiloh has a history of addiction, depression, and a past suicide attempt, and Raye fears the worst. Cork agrees to help, partly because Shiloh's murdered mother, Marais Grand, was a relative who grew up in the O'Connor household.

Sheriff Wally Schanno summons Cork to meet three men who identify themselves as FBI agents: Special Agent in Charge Booker T. Harris, Agent Dwight Sloane, and Agent Grimes. Harris explains that Shiloh was guided into the Boundary Waters by a man known as Ma'iingan (Ojibwe for "wolf") and that Elizabeth Dobson, a musician who possessed letters from Shiloh, was murdered in her Santa Monica apartment. The agents believe Shiloh's psychiatrist used regression therapy to help her recover memories of the night Marais was killed 15 years earlier. The primary suspect in that unsolved murder, Vincent Benedetti, a Las Vegas casino owner, may be trying to silence Shiloh. Cork agrees to help identify the guide, insisting he work alone because the Ojibwe will distrust outsiders.

Cork visits Henry Meloux, an ancient Ojibwe midewiwin (medicine man) who senses a powerful majimanidoo (evil spirit). Meloux identifies Wendell Two Knives as the likely guide. At Grandview, the lakeside estate Marais Grand once owned, Cork finds Raye trapped in a sauna with the door wedged shut. Shiloh's letters have been stolen, but Raye's valuables were left behind. Cork detects cigar smoke in the ransacked bedroom, connecting it to the shaved-headed man from the opening scene.

The next morning, Angelo Benedetti, Vincent's son, intercepts Cork at gunpoint and claims the FBI agents lied. He insists his father is innocent and that someone powerful had Marais killed to conceal a secret relationship. He warns that if the FBI enters the woods, Shiloh will not come out alive.

Cork and Raye visit the Iron Lake Reservation, where they find Shiloh's car at Wendell's property and locate Stormy Two Knives, Wendell's nephew, and Stormy's 10-year-old son Louis. Harris and Sloane arrive, having tracked Cork with a transmitter. They produce planted evidence against Stormy and pressure Louis by threatening to send his father back to prison unless the boy guides them to Shiloh. Louis knows the way to a hidden lake called Nikidin. Cork insists that Stormy, Raye, and he must accompany Louis. Harris reluctantly agrees.

The expedition sets out in three canoes. That first evening, Sloane posts Grimes as a lookout after Louis spots someone following them on the water. Gunshots ring out. Grimes is found dead, killed by an ax blow, and the rifle and radio are gone.

Meanwhile, Jo O'Connor, Cork's estranged wife and attorney for the Iron Lake Anishinaabe (the local Ojibwe community), learns of the expedition from Sarah Two Knives, Stormy's wife, and begins her own investigation.

In the Boundary Waters, Shiloh sets out on her own after deciding Wendell is not coming. She is discovered by two fishermen, but a stranger in camouflage arrives, identifies himself as Charon, and shoots both fishermen dead. Charon is also the man called Milwaukee from the opening scene. He tells Shiloh he has been hired to kill her but first needs her to lead him to the recordings and notebooks she hid in the cabin before leaving. He reveals that he killed Wendell Two Knives and radios a partner called Papa Bear to eliminate the search party.

On a steep portage, the shaved-headed Papa Bear ambushes Cork's group. A gray wolf distracts him, and Sloane shoves Louis to safety before shooting Papa Bear dead.

Back in Aurora, Jo discovers through Sheriff Schanno's contacts that Harris is on personal leave and no agents named Grimes or Sloane exist in the FBI system. She arranges a confrontation between Vincent Benedetti, elderly and using a wheelchair, and Nathan Jackson, Harris's half-brother and the attorney general of California. Both men claim to be Shiloh's biological father. Under Jo's questioning, Harris confesses: Fifteen years ago, he discovered that Theresa Benedetti, Vincent's wife, killed Marais in a jealous rage. Harris buried the evidence to protect Nathan's political career. Sloane, Grimes, and Metcalf—a communications and electronics consultant Harris had recruited—were all complicit.

At the hidden lake, Shiloh sees the gray wolf confront Milwaukee at the top of a rock wall. She shoves him into the water and flees, slashing his inflatable kayak so he cannot follow. Milwaukee burns the cabin and destroys the search party's canoes but takes one for himself. Cork's group finds the burned cabin but deduces Shiloh escaped. Louis patches the damaged canoes using birch bark, spruce pitch, and fishing line, traditional techniques his Uncle Wendell taught him.

On the Deertail River, Milwaukee fires from cliffs above Hell's Playground, a stretch of dangerous rapids. Sloane is shot. Raye appears hit but fakes it and disappears into the river. That night, Louis reveals Shiloh's letters were only ever mailed to Dobson in California, never to Raye. Cork realizes Raye has been the mastermind: He obtained the letters by arranging Dobson's murder, staged the Grandview robbery, planted evidence, and communicated with the killers throughout. Sloane dies during the night.

Cork runs roughly 25 miles out of the wilderness on foot, dislocating his shoulder but pressing on. In Aurora, Jo and the assembled parties determine the motive: Shiloh owns Ozark Records, and Raye only manages it. Shiloh planned to transform the company into a vehicle for Native American music and leave her wealth to the Anishinaabe, destroying everything Raye built.

Shiloh escapes the Boundary Waters and reaches Wendell's trailer, believing she is safe. Jo and Angelo arrive and find her, but Raye appears with a gun, having cut the phone line. He rages that Shiloh was never his child and that Ozark is his true creation. Milwaukee enters behind Raye. When Raye shoots Angelo in the shoulder, Milwaukee punishes Raye for the disrespect by breaking his knee, then refuses to kill the others, quotes Milton's Paradise Lost, and walks out.

Cork, arriving after being driven partway by an elderly birdwatcher, bursts in and subdues Raye. He retrieves a rifle from Wendell's shed and pursues Milwaukee to the lakeshore. When Milwaukee reaches for a concealed weapon, Cork fires a single killing shot.

Jo invites Cork to come home to heal. He accepts.

In an epilogue set two days before Halloween, the Anishinaabe gather on Iron Lake's shore for a ceremony honoring Wendell Two Knives. Louis tells a story about Ma'iingan, a good man whose spirit was transformed by Kitchimanidoo (the Great Spirit) into a gray wolf so he could protect a young woman from evil even after death. Henry Meloux closes the ceremony with a prayer in Ojibwe, affirming that what a good man leaves behind endures forever.