Purgatory Ridge

The third installment in the Cork O'Connor mystery series opens with a prologue set in November 1986. John LePere, a young mate on the Great Lakes ore carrier Alfred M. Teasdale, lost his brother Billy when the ship broke apart during a violent gale on Lake Superior. LePere and two crewmen reached a pontoon raft, but both men died of exposure, leaving LePere the sole survivor after nearly 36 hours adrift.

A dozen years later, in the drought-stricken summer of Aurora, Minnesota, an explosion at a local lumber mill wakes the town before dawn. Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor, a 47-year-old former sheriff who is part Irish and part Ojibwe Anishinaabe, drives to the scene with his wife Jo, an attorney who represents the Iron Lake Ojibwe. Sheriff Wally Schanno suspects a pipe bomb ignited a propane tank and destroyed an equipment shed. Karl Lindstrom, the mill owner, immediately blames the Ojibwe and their allies in a legal battle over logging old-growth white pines the Anishinaabeg call Ninishoomisag (Our Grandfathers), trees sacred as the site of young men's fasting rituals. A caller identifying himself as "Eco-Warrior" takes credit for the attack, and a badly burned body in the wreckage is identified as Charlie Warren, a hereditary chief of the Iron Lake Ojibwe.

Cork, who now runs a lakeside burger stand called Sam's Place, investigates despite no longer holding a badge. He visits Henry Meloux, an ancient Ojibwe mide (medicine man), who hints that Warren kept late-night company with a friend over checkers. Cork confirms through the mill's night watchman that Warren was simply visiting a friend when the bomb went off.

Meanwhile, LePere lives in a small cabin on Grace Cove, the only neighbor to the Lindstrom home. He works as a custodian at the Chippewa Grand Casino and watches Grace Fitzgerald, Lindstrom's novelist wife. His diving partner, Wesley Bridger, a former Navy SEAL, approached LePere at the casino bar the previous summer and gained his trust. Bridger convinced LePere that the Teasdale was deliberately sabotaged by the Fitzgerald Shipping Company for insurance money and funded equipment to locate the wreck. When unknown parties destroy their diving equipment and ransack LePere's cabin, ruining irreplaceable family mementos, a devastated LePere agrees to participate in Bridger's kidnapping scheme targeting Grace and her son Scott.

Tensions escalate. A second bomb destroys a sailboat at the marina moments before Lindstrom reaches it; Cork's shouted warning saves his life. Helm "Hell" Hanover, publisher of the local newspaper, whom Cork has linked to the Minnesota Civilian Brigade militia, blackmails Jo with a compromising photograph from a past affair, demanding Cork stop investigating and never run for sheriff. After a painful argument, Cork and Jo reconcile at Sam's Place, exchanging vows on the dock. Cork tears the photograph in half, promising they will confront Hanover together.

The kidnapping strikes when Jo brings their six-year-old son Stevie to Grace's home for a legal consultation. Grace confides she plans to divorce Karl. Two masked men seize the women and children, bind them with duct tape, and transport them to a remote cabin near the Boundary Waters wilderness. One captor, the gunman, is menacing and cruel; the other, LePere, provides food and water. He is alarmed to learn that Scott has diabetes and needs insulin; he later obtains the medication, an act subsequently linked to a break-in at the reservation clinic.

The FBI, led by Special Agent Margaret Kay, establishes an operations center. The first ransom call demands two million dollars within 24 hours. Lindstrom cannot raise the money; his assets are tied up in the mill, and a prenuptial agreement bars him from accessing Grace's fortune. Cork enlists George LeDuc, chairman of the Iron Lake Tribal Council, who arranges for the casino to provide the full amount as a no-interest loan.

Joan Hamilton, an environmental activist known as "Joan of Arc of the Redwoods," is arrested along with Isaiah Broom, a militant member of the tribal council, after FBI surveillance catches them loading dynamite. Pipe-bomb components matching the mill bombing are found in Hamilton's van. She confesses to being Eco-Warrior and to the bombing that killed Warren but denies any role in the kidnapping. Cork suspects she is protecting her son Brent, who is later found dead after saving another activist during a wildfire. Cork neutralizes Hanover by threatening to turn the Brigade's relocated weapons cache, bearing Hanover's fingerprints, over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The ransom drop fails. Lindstrom, directed by phone along a winding route, leaves the money at a picnic ground while a laser sight on his chest forces compliance. When Cork and Lindstrom return, the cases are empty and a note reads: "They're dead. They're all dead."

When a forest fire threatens the cabin, LePere drives the captives through a corridor of flame to the fish house at Purgatory Cove, his childhood home. During the move, Jo sees his face and identifies him. LePere confides his plan: Bridger will take the ransom and disappear, while LePere accepts prosecution in exchange for a full investigation of the Teasdale wreck and the truth about Billy's death.

Cork, examining photographs in LePere's cabin, notices an illuminated "F" on a ship's mast matching the Fitzgerald Shipping Company's markings visible in photos at Lindstrom's home. He connects the stolen insulin to Scott's diabetes, realizing the kidnapper cared about keeping the boy alive. When Cork confronts Lindstrom, Lindstrom insists they drive to Purgatory Cove. En route, he presses Cork's own revolver to his head and reveals himself as the mastermind: He hired Bridger years earlier to murder Grace's first husband, built the house on Grace Cove to manipulate LePere, and used Eco-Warrior as a smoke screen. With Grace and Scott dead, he stands to inherit over 30 million dollars. He shoots Cork in the shoulder.

The hostages have already escaped. While LePere lay unconscious after being attacked by Bridger, Jo and Grace broke a mirror and used a glass shard to cut their bonds. Stevie, coated in motor oil, squeezed through the barred fish-house window, retrieved keys from LePere's cabin, and freed everyone. LePere leads the group toward Purgatory Ridge, but Lindstrom and Bridger catch them and force everyone aboard LePere's boat, the Anne Marie, heading into a storm on Lake Superior.

Jo tells Bridger that he and Lindstrom are now merely loose ends to each other. Bridger draws a hidden knife and attacks Lindstrom on deck. Lindstrom kills Bridger with two gunshots but takes a knife wound. Cork retrieves the knife and stabs Lindstrom in the back. LePere inflates a small raft, fits Cork into a dry suit, and places the last life vest on him before sending Jo, Grace, and the boys off into the storm. Lindstrom activates a remote detonator, blowing a hole in the stern.

As the Anne Marie sinks, LePere finds Lindstrom clinging to Cork and seizes him, buckling himself to the railing so both go down with the ship. LePere accepts his fate, remembering his father, mother, and Billy as the lake takes him. Jo and Grace paddle through heavy seas and reach shore. At daybreak, the Coast Guard pulls Cork from the water; Jo is aboard when they lift him onto the deck, and he opens his eyes and smiles faintly at her.

In the aftermath, rain from the storm helps control the fires, but the ancient pines have not been spared. Jo visits the burned grove with her family. Meloux walks with Stevie, who is recovering from post-traumatic stress with the medicine man's guidance; Meloux has given the boy the Anishinaabe name Makadewagosh, meaning "silver fox." Stevie discovers a small yellow flower pushing through the scorched earth. Cork appears, his arm in a sling, supported by his daughters Jenny and Annie. Jo walks toward him and sees in his smile "yet another flower. The loveliest she had ever seen" (344).