Spirit Crossing

The twentieth installment in the Cork O'Connor mystery series opens as Annie O'Connor, Cork's daughter, returns to Tamarack County, Minnesota, after nearly seven years working with impoverished Mayan communities in Guatemala. She arrives with Maria Cocum Lopez, a Mayan nurse who is secretly her romantic partner, ahead of her brother Stephen's wedding. Annie is anxious about her family's reaction, but she hides something far more painful: She has glioblastoma, inoperable brain cancer, and roughly a year to live.

Cork, the family patriarch and former Tamarack County sheriff, takes Stephen, his Ojibwe son-in-law Daniel English, and his seven-year-old grandson Waaboo to pick wild blueberries. When their secret patch has been stripped clean, Cork leads them to one once tended by Erno Paavola, a deceased Finnish recluse. In the clearing, Waaboo kneels and appears to speak with someone invisible, telling his father he sees the spirit of a lost, sad woman. Daniel notices a mound of earth resembling a shallow grave.

The discovery intersects two missing-person cases. Olivia Hamilton, the teenage daughter of a wealthy state senator, vanished two weeks earlier from the Howling Wolf bar in Yellow Lake. Crystal Two Knives, a young Ojibwe woman, has been missing for six months with almost no investigation. Daniel, now an officer with the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police, bristles at the disparity. Sheriff Marsha Dross and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) are notified, and Monte Bonhomme, chief of the tribal police, asserts concurrent jurisdiction because the grave lies on land disputed between the county and the reservation.

Daniel and Jenny, Cork's eldest daughter and Waaboo's mother, bring the boy to Henry Meloux, an ancient Mide (Ojibwe healer) who has lived on Crow Point for nearly a century. After spending the morning with Waaboo, Meloux learns the spirit's name is Tacicala, meaning Fawn in the Lakota language, suggesting the buried girl may be Lakota. Meloux counsels the family that Waaboo's gift is both a blessing and a burden.

Cork and Dross begin a parallel investigation, tracing Paavola's heirs: his niece Irene Boyle, now director of a school for troubled youth, and his nephew Mathias Paavola in the town of Dahlbert. Irene confirms childhood knowledge of the blueberry patch but says she has not visited in twenty years. When Cork and Dross confront Mathias at his apartment, he bolts, and Cork spots a T-shirt from the Howling Wolf bar among his belongings.

The family returns to Paavola's property with Waaboo, Meloux, and Prophet, a former mercenary who serves as Meloux's protector. Waaboo senses evil spirits from the cabin. Inside, Daniel finds the floor suspiciously swept clean and a heavy cabinet concealing a trapdoor to an underground bunker, where he discovers the decomposing body of Olivia Hamilton.

Agent Danette Shirley of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Missing and Murdered Unit, a Lakota woman, joins the investigation and takes Waaboo's visions seriously. During a return visit, Waaboo senses that the killers "still have murder in their hearts" and asks fearfully whether they might know about him. His concern proves justified when a reporter arrives at the O'Connor home, having picked up police scanner chatter about the boy's involvement.

Annie suffers worsening symptoms: blinding headaches, trembling hands, and stumbling. At Spirit Crossing, where protesters oppose the Stockbridge oil pipeline's planned crossing of the sacred Jiibay River, a private security officer named Adrian Lewis tries to arrest Stephen and Annie on false charges. Annie recognizes Lewis as a man who has been watching her in Aurora and suspects he was the figure she saw surveilling the house from a parked truck.

Monte receives a lead through tribal contacts: A girl named Fawn Blacksmith was released from juvenile detention six months ago and never arrived at her grandmother's home. Daniel, Monte, and Agent Shirley visit Daisy Blacksmith, a Lakota elder, who recounts a devastating history of boarding school trauma, her granddaughter's cycling through foster care, and her certainty that Fawn is dead.

Cork and Dross trace connections at the Howling Wolf, where a customer identifies Paavola's regular companion as a man who hides a deformed right ear under a stocking cap and calls all women "sluts." They warn Irene about the Hamilton discovery, and she reveals that she and Mathias both knew about the underground room from childhood. When they return that evening, Irene has vanished. Meanwhile, Annie hears an intruder try the patio door one night and sees the silhouette of a figure with a rifle. After the figure flees, she tells Cork about her terminal diagnosis.

Daniel brings Waaboo back to the blueberry patch, where a rifle shot kicks up dirt where the boy stood moments before. Prophet chases the shooter, who escapes but drops a ball cap emblazoned with "ANIMIKII" (Anishinaabe for Thunderbird). The group discovers an AirTag tracker hidden behind Cork's license plate, explaining how the shooter knew their location.

Lewis is captured on Crow Point after tracking Annie via a second AirTag planted in her shoulder bag. He fires at her, but Meloux pulls her to the ground and Prophet subdues him. Meloux identifies Lewis as a Windigo, a cannibal spirit with a heart of ice. Tribal officers take Lewis into custody, with Prophet's involvement kept secret.

During transport, a sniper assassinates Lewis. The matching Remington 30-06 casing connects the killing to the blueberry patch shooting. Hamilton's autopsy confirms strangulation and the presence of Rohypnol, a sedative commonly used to incapacitate victims, pointing toward a trafficking ring.

In Duluth, Daniel traces Fawn's history to an abandoned house where a homeless veteran remembers an older boyfriend called "Billy Bones" who groomed and exploited her. At Sizemore School, a colleague identifies Irene's ex-husband, Liam Boyle, a charming and abusive man of mixed Ojibwe-Irish heritage who once worked there as a groundskeeper. The name clicks: Liam and Billy are both versions of William. Billy Bones is Liam Boyle.

Cork and Dross locate Lewis's fifth-wheel trailer at a fishing cabin near Spirit Crossing. Inside they find evidence of trafficking and Fawn's pencil sketches of the three men involved. In the surrounding woods, they rescue Margot Lachance, a seventeen-year-old Ojibwe girl who has been trafficked. Margot reveals that Lewis killed Fawn when she tried to protect another girl, Paavola tried to shield the victims, and Boyle was the ringleader who fled with two other girls.

Daniel, Monte, and Agent Shirley track Paavola to the old family house in Aitkin, where he has been hiding with his cousin Irene to protect her from Boyle, who intended to silence anyone who could connect him to the murders. Irene confirms that she told Liam about the underground room during their marriage. Lewis killed both Fawn and Hamilton, and Paavola helped dispose of the bodies, while Boyle orchestrated the trafficking operation.

Annie, having found spiritual acceptance of death through conversations with Meloux, visits Crow Point one last time. Waaboo gently tells her he knows she is dying and promises that Maria's face will be the last thing she sees. As Annie walks back toward her vehicle, Boyle appears with a rifle and forces her toward Crow Point, intending to kill Waaboo. Annie faces him without fear, telling him she is already dying. When Boyle presses the rifle to her forehead, Prophet shoots and kills him from the tree line. Meloux takes responsibility for the shot to protect Prophet's identity.

In the epilogue, Stephen and his fiancée Belle marry in a ceremony blending Anishinaabe traditions, with Meloux giving his blessing. Crystal Two Knives returns home before Thanksgiving, having run away with an acrobat heading to Las Vegas; she waited to come back until her abusive ex-boyfriend was arrested. Annie remains in hospice care in Aurora, with Maria always beside her. On a snowy winter morning, she dies peacefully, Maria's face the last thing she sees. Her headstone reads: BE NOT AFRAID.