Red Knife

The eighth installment in the Cork O'Connor mystery series opens with a prologue set two hundred years before the novel's present, in which a sixteen-year-old Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) warrior named Blue Jay kills a Dakota boy during a raid. The Ojibwe name the clearing Miskwaa-mookomaan, meaning "Red Knife." Two centuries later, on that same ground, the citizens of Tamarack County, Minnesota, build a high school.

In the present, Cork O'Connor, a part-Ojibwe former sheriff who now works as a private investigator, receives a retainer from Alexander Kingbird, a former marine and ex-member of the Latin Lords, a California gang. Kingbird now leads the Red Boyz, an Ojibwe gang on the Iron Lake Reservation that, according to the DEA, secretly warehouses narcotics for the Latin Lords. He wants Cork to arrange a meeting with Buck Reinhardt, a volatile local businessman who blames Kingbird for his daughter Kristi's death. Kristi died after going off a rocky ledge while high on methamphetamine obtained from Lonnie Thunder, a Red Boyz member who has since disappeared. Kingbird promises to offer Reinhardt "justice" but does not explain what he means.

Cork searches multiple bars for Reinhardt but cannot find him. His wife, Jo, an attorney, warns him about the danger of standing between the two factions. The next morning, Lucinda Kingbird, Alexander's mother, drives to her son's house to pick up her daughter-in-law, Rayette, and baby granddaughter, Misty, for church. She finds Misty alone and crying, the utility room door smashed open, and blood near the garage. In the meadow behind the house, she discovers the bodies of Alexander and Rayette.

Sheriff Marsha Dross tells Cork the Kingbirds were executed: Their hands were taped, and they were shot in the back with a shotgun. The words "DED BOYZ" (37) are painted in blood on the house. Captain Ed Larson, the county's lead investigator, and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Agent Simon Rutledge process the scene. Dross asks Cork to use his Ojibwe connections to locate Thunder.

Cork investigates on the reservation. Tom Blessing, Kingbird's second-in-command, refuses to cooperate. George LeDuc, the tribal chairman, reveals Kingbird had been visiting Henry Meloux, an ancient Ojibwe Mide, or healer. Cork hikes to Meloux's isolated cabin. Meloux confirms Kingbird was undergoing a spiritual transformation, offers Cork cryptic advice to take "a hawk's-eye view," and speaks of a terrifying vision: something dark with the face of a youth surrounded by young bodies in a meadow.

Suspicion falls on Reinhardt, but his wife, Elise Reinhardt, claims he was home all night. The DEA theory holds that the murders were a drug-related hit. Cork suspects Thunder, who might have killed Kingbird to prevent being turned in.

Meanwhile, Lucinda discovers her husband, Will Kingbird, a rigid retired marine, preparing sniper rifles at his gun shop, raising her fear that he intends to kill Reinhardt. Their surviving son, sixteen-year-old Ulysses (Uly), is a talented guitarist tormented by bullies at school. Uly sends troubling messages hinting at despair to Cork's seventeen-year-old daughter, Annie O'Connor, and begins spending time with Darrell Gallagher, a lonely, troubled teenager raised by his elderly grandfather.

On Monday evening, Cork is lured to Sam's Place, his burger joint, by a fake fire report. Shots are fired at him while his nine-year-old son, Stevie, is present. Thunder calls afterward, warning Cork to stop looking. Furious, Cork moves to Sam's Place with his firearms to keep his family safe.

Cork breaks Reinhardt's alibi by discovering Buck's affair with Brittany Young, a server at the Buzz Saw bar, who confirms Buck was with her until after midnight the night of the murders. She also reveals that when Buck returned home, his custom shotgun had been fired. Elise claims she shot at a cougar.

On Wednesday night, Buck is assassinated outside the Buzz Saw, shot once in the head. Will Kingbird confesses to the murder, but Cork discovers Will has an alibi placing him in Duluth that night. Will admits he confessed to protect whoever killed Reinhardt, believing that person fulfilled a duty he himself had failed to perform. He reveals he feared Uly took his missing Dragunov sniper rifle and committed the killing.

Cork discovers Thunder's SUV hidden in an abandoned gas station and deduces Thunder has been dead for some time. Blessing has been using Thunder's vehicle to stage incidents, making everyone believe Thunder is alive. Cork arranges a confrontation: LeDuc and a group of older Ojibwe men force Blessing to confess. Kingbird had given Thunder a choice: kill himself or be killed. Thunder cut his own throat. The Kingbirds were murdered by the Latin Lords, specifically by a cartel-trained enforcer named Joey Estevez and a member named Manny Ortega. Kingbird had wanted to sever the drug connection, believing it dishonored the Ojibwe, and the Lords killed him for it, installing Blessing as the new leader.

LeDuc demands Cork's loyalty: The Ojibwe will handle the Latin Lords themselves. On Sunday, LeDuc, the Red Boyz, Will Kingbird, and Cork ambush the Lords at a drug warehouse near Black Duck Lake. When the Lords arrive by floatplane, the Ojibwe open fire. LeDuc forces Ortega to execute the wounded Estevez on camera in exchange for his freedom, creating insurance against retaliation. The Ojibwe burn the warehouse, the drugs, and the bodies.

Separately, BCA Agent Rutledge catches Elise throwing a rifle into the lake the night Buck dies. Lab analysis matches the weapon to the crime scene, and Elise is arrested for murdering her husband. Dave Reinhardt, Buck's son and Yellow Lake's police chief, and Cal Richards, one of Buck's employees, are arrested for arson and assault against reservation residents.

Will confronts Uly about the missing Dragunov. Uly admits he took it intending to kill Reinhardt but could not go through with it. He has been keeping the rifle at Gallagher's house. Will tells Uly he is proud of him and says "I love you, son" (298) for the first time.

On Monday, Meloux arrives at Cork's house with his vision now clarified: The dark figure stands in the meadow called Miskwaa-mookomaan, the site of the high school, and among the bloody young bodies he sees Annie. Cork remembers the Dragunov is at Gallagher's house and races to the school.

Uly intercepts Annie at school and reveals that Gallagher has shared a plan to chain the doors and shoot students from a target list. While they deliberate, Gallagher has already begun his attack. Annie enters through the kitchen and finds carnage throughout the building. She locates her friend Cara Haines, shot at the bottom of a stairwell, and presses a compress to Cara's wound. Gallagher appears and aims at Annie's head. She accepts her death with serenity: "God forgive you, Darrell" (311). Knowing about the plan, Uly has retrieved the Dragunov. He arrives and pretends to join the attack, asking Gallagher to step aside so Uly can take the shot at Annie. When Gallagher moves out of the line of fire, Uly shoots him dead. Cara dies beneath Annie's hands. Cork arrives to find Annie bloodied but alive.

The shooting kills nine at the school plus Gallagher's grandfather, whom Gallagher shot before leaving home. Will sells his gun shop and moves the family to Des Moines. Uly eventually achieves modest fame as a musician. Annie gives up going to the University of Wisconsin to play softball and becomes Sister Anne, a nun, finding her path "through the hurting hearts of others" (317). Cork brings his firearms to Meloux's cabin, declaring he will never need them again. Meloux accepts but says, "They'll be here when you need them" (318). The novel closes with Cork watching Stevie race into the forest, struck by an overwhelming sadness as his son disappears from sight.