Trust No One in "Sulfur Springs," Cork O'Connor Series #16

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To keep his crime series fresh, author William Kent Krueger takes his detective Cork O'Connor somewhere new around every five novels. In other books, we've come to know Cork, his growing family, and his hometown of Aurora on the edge of the Ojibwe reservation. He's spent some time in Chicago, mountains out west, and north of the Canada border. But Krueger sometimes takes us deep into communities far from Aurora in Copper River (#6 in the series), in Northwest Angle (#11) and in one I've read most recently, Sulfur Springs (#16).

The precipitating action is a phone message to Rainy Bisonette, longtime lover of Cork, now his wife. Her son Peter out in Arizona leaves a garbled message through heavy static about someone named "Rodriguez," that he has "killed him," and "they'll be looking for me." He doesn't return urgent calls from his mother and Cork, so they board a plane for Arizona.

The town of Sulfur Springs is Aurora's opposite: oppressively hot and arid, on edge because of drug trade and illegal migration from the southern border. Nearly everyone who speaks to Cork tells him to "trust no one but family" in Sulfur Springs. Trust and doubt color the entire novel, leaving no one untouched, not even Rainy, whose previous marriage to a drug lord named Mondragon is news to Cork. Still, Krueger gives us rich description to show the beauty and danger of nature in this unfamiliar setting.

In this novel, Krueger develops further the theme of the ogichidaa, an Ojibwe word for the kind of person Cork is, a "guardian" for his people. Rainy's son Peter turns out to be one of these, a leader who is safeguarding migrants from both a rapacious drug gang and a racist vigilante group. Watching the relationship develop between Cork and Peter is a highlight of the novel, especially when Peter is involved in a confrontation between his natural father and his adopted one. When Cork tells him he's a part of Cork's life, now, Peter asks, "Like family?" "No, not like. Family." (276)

I come away from the novel with impressions of two strong scenes that parallel each other. In both scenes, Cork, Rainy, and her ex face a young man involved in the drug trade. In the second instance, it's the son of drug lord Rodriguez, a privileged young man shielded from consequences until the moment that Cork gets the drop on him. At the earlier instance, the young man is younger than 20, shares the name Pedro with Rainy's son, and sobs when Mondragon orders him shot. Rainy intervenes, and Cork tells us

I saw what Rainy saw, a kid way over his head in something that he regretted now because of the present consequences but that, if he survived and grew wise, he might regret later for all the right reasons. (171)

Later, Cork reflects on how he has often tried not to think of his opponents as human beings, to shield himself emotionally when having to use deadly force.

But Pedro had had a profound impact on me. He wasn't much younger than my own son, Stephen. He'd come from a small village, and God knows how he'd gotten himself mixed up with people like the Rodriguezes. Maybe those [other gang members killed in a shootout] were no different.... Every child is born a clean sheet of possibility, and no mother dreams of her beautiful baby ending up dead in an alley or rotting in the black of a forgotten mine. (175)

Krueger has always orchestrated his stories to reach suspenseful high-impact showdowns. This is no exception.

[See my responses to other Krueger books]

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