Red Knife: A Cork O’Connor Mystery

September 1, 2008

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A Cork O’Connor Mystery

by William Kent Krueger

A Heartland Indie Bestseller
    — Now available in paperback!
    — New Reading Group Guide available, too

Atria Books / Simon & Schuster
On sale May 12, 2009
ISBN-13:  9781416556756
$15.00 Trade Paperback

Atria Books / Simon & Schuster
ISBN-13:  978-1-4165-5674-9
$25.00 Hardcover
Fiction / Mystery & suspense set in Minnesota

“Red Knife is a book about violence, which is something I’ve been thinking a good deal about over the past several years. In March of 2005 on the Red Lake Reservation in northwestern Minnesota, the worst school shooting in this nation’s history up to that point in time occurred. But it wasn’t the first fatal school shooting in Minnesota. Two years before that in a small town west of the Twin Cities a high school student shot one of his classmates to death. These tragedies disturbed me greatly. And I began to reflect on violence in our culture and in other cultures and have become convinced that, despite all our lip service about being a peace-loving nation and people, we have perpetuated a belief system that encourages violence as the most legitimate response to threat. Red Knife was the result of all that rather grim rumination.”
– Author William Kent Krueger

“Cork O’Connor… is one of those hometown heroes you rarely see… anymore-someone so decent and true, he might restore his town’s battered faith in the old values.”  — The New York Times

“Racial tensions fuel Krueger’s outstanding ninth Cork O’Connor mystery, which delivers everything its predecessors like Thunder Bay have promised-and more.”  — Publishers Weekly

“The Cork O’Connor mysteries are known for their rich characterizations and their complex stories with deep moral and emotional cores. This one is no exception… If you don’t know Cork O’Connor, get to know him now.”   — Booklist

Award Nominations:
Northeastern Minnesota Book Award (NEMBA)
Anthony Award

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MBA Bookseller Information

NEW!  Our RED KNIFE trade paperback Midwest Connections sign and our Reading Group Guide are available now.  Scroll down to the Downloads to get these files.

Read all of Kent Krueger’s bestselling books published by Atria Books and Pocket Books / Simon & Schuster!

Downloads

About the Book

“If you haven’t read RED KNIFE yet — WOW!!!! I thought THUNDER BAY was the best thing Kent Krueger had ever written, but now I’m not sure. Check it out!!”
- Blakeley Beatty, Thyme Worn Treasures, Rice Lake, WI

The newest book in William Kent Krueger’s award-winning Corcoran O’Connor series finds the charismatic private investigator caught in the middle of a racial gang war that’s turning picturesque Tamarack County, Minnesota, into a bloody battlefield.

When the daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction, her father, strong-willed and brutal Buck Reinhardt, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Ojibwe youths accused of supplying the girl’s fatal drug dose. When the head of the Red Boyz and his wife are murdered in a way that suggests execution, the Ojibwe gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.

Author Kent Krueger tells us:

 Every book in the Cork O’Connor series is different. From the nature of our most personal relationships, to the plight of the children our society abandons, to the sacrifices we make in the name of love, my books have dealt with issues important to me and worth, I believed, exploring. Red Knife, the eighth book in the series, has been by far the most difficult for me to write because it tackles a subject of such profound and confusing impact in our world: violence.

The genesis for the book was the horrific school shootings on the Red Lake Reservation in northwestern Minnesota in 2005, which left five children and two adults dead. It was, at that time, the worst such incident in our nation’s history. But it wasn’t the first fatal school shooting in Minnesota. Two years before that, in the small town of Cold Spring, a high school student shot one of his classmates to death.

I live in a state full of people probably not very different from those in your own. In Minnesota, we pride ourselves on our solid family values, on our probity, and on our good common sense. Things like school shootings aren’t supposed to happen here. Yet I saw the reality in our midst: unspeakable violence and senseless death. And I couldn’t help but wonder why.

Red Knife is not the story of the Red Lake shootings. I couldn’t bring myself to trespass on the tragedy that affected so many in that close-knit, isolated community. It is, instead, the story of a value most of us cling to, though we generally deny it, one that continues to tear the world apart. Violence may be wrong, we tell ourselves, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. The problem is that no matter how we justify it, the end is abysmally the same. We set loose a beast that can’t be controlled.

Red Knife is a terrific mystery, a powerful story, a great addition to the series, and a novel I’m proud to have written. But it is also, if I’ve done my job well, a book that will leave you profoundly disturbed.

About the Author

For more than two decades, William Kent Krueger has made his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and two children. His Cork O’Connor novels, Iron Lake (winner of the 1998 Anthony Award for Best First Novel and the Barry Award), Boundary Waters, Purgatory Ridge, Blood Hollow (winner of the 2004 Anthony Award for Best Novel), Mercy Falls (winner of the 2005 Anthony Award for Best Novel), Copper River (winner of a 2006 Minnesota Book Award) and Thunder Bay (winner of the 2007 Minnesota Book Award for Best Genre Fiction), as well as the political thriller The Devil’s Bed, are available from Atria Books.

Visit his website at www.williamkentkrueger.com

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