Vermilion Drift: A Novel (Cork O'Connor #10) [S0004]

2011 PB with minor wear. Some nights, Corcoran O'Connor dreams his father's death. William Kent Krueger's gripping tale of suspense begins with a recurring nightmare, a gun, and a wound in the earth so deep and horrific that it has a name: Vermilion Drift. When the Department of Energy puts an underground iron mine on its short list of potential sites for storage of nuclear waste, a barrage of protest erupts in Tamarack County, Minnesota, and Cork is hired as a security consultant. Deep in the mine during his first day on the job, Cork stumbles across a secret room that contains the remains of six murder victims. Five appear to be nearly half a century old-connected to what the media once dubbed "The Vanishings," a series of unsolved disappearances in the summer of 1964, when Cork's father was sheriff in Tamarack County. But the sixth has been dead less than a week. What's worse, two of the bodies-including the most recent victim-were killed using Cork's own gun, one handed down to him from his father. As Cork searches for answers, he must dig into his own past and that of his father, a well-respected man who harbored a ghastly truth. Time is running out, however. New threats surface, and unless Cork can unravel the tangled thread of clues quickly, more death is sure to come. Vermilion Drift is a powerful novel, filled with all the mystery and suspense for which Krueger has won so many awards. A poignant portrayal of the complexities of family life, it's also a sobering reminder that even those closest to our hearts can house the darkest-and deadliest-of secrets.

From Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A nice blend of cold cases and a recent murder linked by the fact that the same gun was used in both. As usual Cork does his own investigating - cooperation is not in his vocabulary! Nevertheless he is a smart man and he solves the case with hard work and some intuition. As usual there are beautiful descriptions of nature, some great characters and intriguing events. I am thoroughly enjoying this whole series."; "Wow! What a book!! I did NOT want to put this one down! It was fascinating learning more about Cork's youth - and I absolutely loved the Native American mysticism included in Vermillion Drift. I think that this book gives enough background from the previous in the series, where readers could actually jump in without having read the previous books. This one is not to be missed!"; "What keeps me coming back to this series is not simply the crimes being solved but the people themselves. Over the course of the books, these characters grow and change in meaningful ways, and readers are invited to grow with them. When a novel leaves you thinking about its characters long after you've turned the final page, you know you've encountered something special. Vermilion Drift does exactly that."