Tuesday, March 13, 2018

book review: "Vermilion Drift"...

... another of the talking books I have enjoyed reading while driving. Some of the boxed sets of Cds will take me on legitimate road trips, while others never leave town, and are listened to while going to and fro for work or errands and appointments. I find that most of the things I check out usually have about ten discs per box, but one recently was all on one though it was not condensed, a full book length recording.

This one is another by the author I have been reading lately: William Kent Krueger. With the same characters as several other books, read/heard while traveling. They all are set in the northern part of Minnesota, on or near the Ojibwa reservation. Each book has some characters who are native American friends of the O'Connor family. The former sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork, has been hired as a 'consultant'/PI to find the missing sister of an executive who is dealing with EPA about storing hazardous materials in a closed mine his family owns.

When Cork goes down in the mine, taking an elevator down the shaft to get to horizontal tunnels, called 'drifts', they find desiccated bodies of people who have been reported missing. Women who disappeared forty years ago, and have been hidden away in the abandoned mine all this time. As well as the body of the missing sister, who was obviously murdered.The plot, as you might imagine thickens, and is most intriguing as Cork investigates, puts the pieces together to solve the mystery. As usual, I found it hard to turn the car off when arriving at my destination.

As usual the characters, who I feel like I am personally acquainted with after listening to a number of books, are so well written they seem like real people. I've read so much about the O'Connor family and friends, they have come to life. The details Krueger adds to make them seem so realistic: getting out his dad's hand gun from the secured safe in the closet, making the sandwich with dark rye bread, drinking his favorite brand of beer, I think I actually know these people.

No comments:

Post a Comment