Book Review – Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger

I’ve been following along with Krueger’s Cork O’Connor books since 2008. They never disappoint, but some are better than others.

Spirit Crossing follows Cork and his family as they discover a grave while picking blueberries. He discovers that his grandson picks up on positive and sinister feelings of a place, or people, and that his daughter is dying. All this set against a murder mystery that delves into the disturbing and frightening world of sex trafficking, and also an oil pipeline.

This book spends most of its time solving the murder mystery that Krueger sets up right at the beginning. The investigative work, unfortunately, is spread across three law enforcement agencies which means the book feels very episodic as Krueger jumps back and forth between the three. As a mystery and crime novel, that is great. But, what makes Krueger’s novels so great is that they usually spend time getting to know the characters as well. There is very little of that here.

Another side plot that happens here is a protest revolving around an oil pipeline being built in Northern Minnesota. The premise of this book is that the O’Connors are all coming home to attend Stephen’s wedding (Cork’s son), but so little of this book is spent on any such event that I wonder why that plot point is even part of the book. Krueger hops so much between wanting to make points about the dangers of oil pipelines and sex trafficking murder mysteries, that there is no room for weddings or dying sisters.

I’m not saying this book is bad or unreadable. Its just more murder mystery than the family sagas I am used to from Krueger. As a cop thriller, its great. I just wanted more of the family history and drama that are in his other novels. Krueger wants to say so much about indigenous women going missing and it going unnoticed while also commenting on the dangers of oil pipelines that both storylines cancel each other out.

Three out of five stars.