Apostle's Cove by William Kent Krueger

Krueger has a long history with Cork O'Connor - this is his 21st O'Connor outing.

O'Connor is the retired sheriff in Aurora, MN. From there, left for a few years to be a Chicago cop, then came back. Joined the force for a few years, won an election, make that a lot of elections. Now retired, he lives with his immediate and extended family way the hell up nort' near the legendary Boundary Waters. He took over a local hamburger stand but still does some PI work when the need arises.

His son, Steven, is in law school and moonlights a bit for a non-profit dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted from prison. When shuffling through the stacks of potential cases, he finds one from Aurora. Axel Boshey is serving a life term in the Stillwater, MN prison. He confessed to the brutal murder of his wife.  The first capital case for the newly elected Sheriff O'Connor.

At the time, it seemed an open and shut case. Blacked-out drunk Indian (who already beat a manslaughter charge years earlier), a philandering wife. While all the evidence pointed to Boshey, some seemingly trivial details were left hanging. At the time, the evidence and confession pointed only at Boshey. 

In the light of 25 years, those details don't seem so trivial, at least to Steven so he asks his dad if he might review the case to see what might've been missed or overlooked or lost in the shuffle of a quick closing of the case.  Cork agrees. The thought that the wrong man was incarcerated and that the real killer might still be free drive him to make things right. 

That's the premise. The narrative breaks into two parts: Then and Now. 'Then' is told in first person as it happened. The killing, investigation, confession, incarceration; takes upwards of 60-65% of the book. A significant backstory. 'Now' is told similarly. First person, as it's happening.

The main characters are Cork and family, a hippie flake (Aphrodite) who moved into area and formed a bit of a commune (replete with hipsters, alcohol, drugs, and free love), the cops of the time (one of whom Cork defeated in the first election, other is a racist pig against the native population), and various colorful locals, their kids and grandchildren. In particular, Chastity (Aphrodite's child) and Boshey (her husband) and two of Chastity's kids (neither by Axel; Moonbeam and Sunny).

Axel gets sentenced to life and turns his life around from being an unreliable drunk to becoming a bit of a healer for inmates. Comes to realize this calling may be why was really locked away. When Cork sees Axel 25 years later, Axel tells him he doesn't want to be released, that he's needed in the prison more than Cork needs to set him free. 

That the real killer may still be around, Cork goes off on his own trying to piece together a complex interaction of what turns out to be a series of seriously demented people Cork thought he knew.

As stated above, this is Krueger's 21st book featuring Cork O'Connor. That means he's got a following and must be pretty successful to boot (lots of NY Times bestsellers).  He also have four other unrelated novels, three of which I've read and reviewed here. One of which, Ordinary Grace, is one of the best books I've ever read and won the 2014 Edgar Award for best fiction (the book version of the Oscar for Best Picture. If you've not read Ordinary Grace, you really owe it to yourself). Not really sure how many Cork O'Connor books I've read and reviewed here. Whatever that is, there are more. 

While reading this book, I had a feeling that this is a book he'd started way back when, put it aside and never got back to it. But after a while, he resurrected the manuscript, and reorganized it to be a cold case book. Regardless, Krueger has presented loyal readers (and newbies, too) with another memorable outing filled with concrete characters, the emotional edge needed for such a story, a comfortable rural setting, native characters and the mysticism that permeates their soul. 

Can't go wrong with Krueger. Betting your local library has a shelf full of his work. It's about time you get to it.  

ECD 

Wild Dark Shore

 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy was published in 2025 and has received numerous awards including a nomination for the 2026 Edgar Award for Best Novel. The story takes place on fictional Shearwater Island which was located about where the real Macquarie Island is, between Tasmania and Antarctic. It had been chosen as a vault for seeds of every possible species of plants. However, as the result of rising sea levels which would eventually make life on the island impossible, the island is scheduled for abandonment. The scientific research station had already been abandoned, so all the scientists that had been located had left by the time the story began. Left behind was a family of caretakers and one scientist who had been chosen to get the content of the vault ready for transport to a better location. 

The story opens with the discovery of a woman, Rowan, who has washed up to the shore following a severe storm. She was alive, but there was no evidence how she possibly could have gotten there. With the help of Dominic Salt and his three children, Raff, Fen, and Orly, Rowan is gradually nursed back to health and she slowly reveals her secrets, including her marriage to the one scientist, Hank, who had been left behind to sort the seeds and get them ready for a transfer to a safer location.. Dominic had brought his children there eight years earlier following the death of his wife during child birth for Orly. Rowan was searching for her husband, Hank, but she discovered her own mixed feelings about the marriage. The isolation from the rest of the world was taking its toll on the remaining inhabitants.

 

This is really a story about life and death, and the emotions that go along with that. There’s the death of life on the island, the death of Dominic’s wife, possible murder of scientists, death of the inhabitants before they could get rescued death of the seeds that had long been protected, the drowning of Rowan as she gives her own life to save Orly. This story is very well-written with fascinating characters and a skillfully unfolding plot. I agree with the awards that have come to McConaghy for this novel, so it gets a 5/5 rating from me.

South, Scott and Amundsen's Race to the Pole

 After reading the accounts of polar explorers Shakleton and Amundsen, I decided to read the short (less than 100 pages) nonfiction account of the intense race between the two Antarctica explorers, Scott and Amundsen, as told by Hunter Stewart in South, Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the Pole. Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen were both determined to be the first to arrive at the South Pole. They had different ideas about how to form a polar expedition, and they were intense competitors. Shakleton was not a part of this particular race. It was in 1914, three years later, that Shakleton’s unsuccessful but heroic adventure occurred. 

Amundsen was methodical in his planning, and he was proven correct that dogs would be the key to his success, unlike Scott who travelled with a much larger group of men Scott also took along motor vehicles and ponies, both of which proved to be problematic. He didn’t trust dogs to be useful enough, a decision that Amundsen proved to be wrong. Amundsen a smaller group of men and he took a lot more dogs with him. Neither ponies nor cars were a part of his planning. Both explorers wrote about the hardship from the weather, although Shakleton really did a better job as he wrote about the hardships of traveling in such a remote and harsh climate.

 

Scott had trouble with his cars and ponies and that resulted in a month later start than Amundsen. The travel itself, much by foot, was arduous, incredible, breathtaking. Given the material, this reader came away with respect for having Amundsen as a leader, and it was very easy to dislike the dictatorial and self-centered efforts of Scott. Amundsen arrived at the South Pole on 12/14/11, and Scott arrived 34 days later. Amundsen made it back home to Norway, but Scott never made it back to London, having died during his belated effort to reach the pole and then get home again.

 

This short book was definitely worth reading, and it maybe the best primer that I’ve read so far as I prepare for a touristy visit to the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica. I’ll be crossing the Drake Passage in a luxury liner, unlike the 22-foot row boats that Shakleton had. It was the Hunter’s author’s quotes from Scott’s diary that was most interesting. The diary was found in his tent and under Scott’s frozen body. Despite his failures, Scott argued in his diary that it was merely bad luck with poor timing and weather that led to his failures, not any mistake that had made in planning for this expedition. He refused to accept his responsibility for his own fatal end and that of his loyal crew.

Chasing the Light

 Chasing the Light by Jesse Blackadder is historical fiction about the first woman to land on Antarctic in the 1930s. In theisstory, there were three Norwegian women who had the possibility to land on the continent first, all who were traveling together in the same ship although they arrived there under very different circumstances. Ingrid Christensen was the wife of Lars Christensen who owned the biggest whaling operation in Norway. She both wanted to see her husband’s whale harvesting boats in action as well as desperately wanting to be first woman to reach Antarctica. Mathilde Wegger’s husband had died recently and she was miserably depressed. Since Lars would not allow Ingrid to travel without a female companion and since they thought the adventure might spark Mathilde out of her mood, although it was really against her will and interests to leave her children behind, Mathilde had the trip foisted upon her. She actually changed her mind as they were about to board ship in Cape Town, but Lars did not allow her to get off his boat. Lillemor Rachlew had been inspired to be adventurous by none other than Amelia Earhart. She was a highly manipulative and beautiful woman who came to Cape Town with hopes of weaseling her way onto the ship. She was someone who usually got her way, and she was successful once again in securing a place for herself. 

Over the course of their voyage, there were shifting alliances among the women. Lars wanted his wife to cooperate with him about producing a seventh child, but Ingrid really did not want to be responsible for another child. I thought the descriptions of sailing through the southern ocean was particularly good, and the group almost did not get to make their landing, but they did so at a time they believed they were not the first. One of the other sea captains brought his wife along which was against the strong the misogynistic spirit of all other captains at the time. She was thought to have been the first, much to the disappointment of Ingrid and Lillemor. Mathilde was so angry about being kept on the ship in Cape Town, against her will, that she nearly just stayed in her cabin rather than make a landing when she had the chance.

 

The first known landing on Antarctica was by an American, Captain John Davis, on 2//7/1821. The first person to reach the South Pole was Roald Amundsen on 12/14/1911, and it was not until 2/20/1935 that a woman finally made it to the continent. In fact, it was the wife of the Norwegian Captain Klarius Mikkelsen, Caroline, who first stepped on the continent. It was not that there were no women who wanted to go south to Antarctica, it was that the male captains simply would not bring them along.

 

The 1930s were not the end of the whaling business which could not endure the mass slaughtering to which the whales were subjected. The Norwegian whaling began in 1904, peaked in the 1920/s and 1930’s, and mostly collapsed at the end of WWII. However, the severe over-exploration dragged on until it’s last season in 1967-68. The global moratorium on commercial whaling did not begin until 1986.

At Midnight Comes the Cry

 Julia Spencer-Fleming is not an author that I had known prior to a blurb in the NY Times Book Review, so I gave her a look. When I finished her latest novel in the Fergusson/Van Alstyne mystery series, At Midnight Comes the Cry published in 2025, I found out this was at least her 11^th book in the series. She published the first one, In the Bleak Midwinter, in 2002. The newest novel tells about the ongoing relationship between Clare Fergusson, an Episcopal priest and former US Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot, and former police chief Russ Van Alstyne in the fictional town of Millers Kill in upstate New York. I find it exciting to read a very good story and then learn that the author has a substantial body of work already published. Now I have a series of novels to look forward to, and I’ll get to enjoy the evolution of Ms. Spencer-Fleming’s protagonists. I’ve already downloaded In The Bleak Midwinter and plan to read it soon and then work my way through her novels in the order of publication. 

This story began with Kevin Flynn, a young officer who chose to leave the Millers Kill PD to work in a bigger department at Syracuse. He was assigned to an undercover operation in which his task was to infiltrate a group of white supremists, but then he disappeared. His girlfriend and parents had not heard from him for months, he was fired from the Syracuse PD because the funds for his undercover job had been reallocated to other things, and he was a no-show for a new assignment.

 

Basically, this was a story about the white supremists, their plan to kill Jews, the misogyny of that movement, and the multicultural characters who were aligned to stop them. This was a very well-designed plot with fascinating characters. This mystery novel gets a 5/5 rating from me, and it left me excited to read more of this authors work.

 

Everland

 Everland by Rebecca Hunt, published in 2015, is a novel regarding two visits to a fictional island in Antarctica, the explorations taking place 100 years apart. Three explorers in 1913 were contrasted with three researchers in 2012, who set out to explore unchartered territory in the harshest of circumstances. On the one hand, the descriptions of the troubles of Antarctic exploration by the author sounded quite similar to what was reported in the nonfiction works of explorers Shakleton and Amundsen. Weather had to be considered literally at every step along the way, be that in the early 20^th or 21^st centuries. Both the real explorations and the fictional ones in this novel were impressive, breathtaking. On the other hand, I found myself getting lost with regard to the characters in both of these fictional expeditions. I got to the 60% mark of this historical fiction work and just was not interested in following through to know how the author brought this novel to a conclusion.

Raskin's World by Charlie Stella

Charlie (seeing as how we've met, I think I'm allowed to use his first name) ventures away from his typical crime/mafia genre venturing in the legal world. No, it's not John Grisham redux. Lawyers are just the subjects of Charlie's pen (make that keyboard). "They" say write about what you know and Charlie has spent a long time in legal firms (but he's not a lawyer) so one could wonder how much of this book was inspired by actual shenanigans in some law firm from his past. But it's not a legal procedural. Regardless, as with most of Stella's books where character development reigns supreme, a cast of characters is warranted (essential?):

MAIN CAST

Carol Delvicchio: a stunningly beautiful young woman . . . has worked in the lower levels of a few law firms . . . always on the prowl for her next conquest she can squeeze for money and a living arrangement . . . has a history of drug/alcohol abuse to go with a few failed attempts at rehab.

Tom Raskin: . . . The title character . . . Married to Maryanne, couple kids . . . a decent man who strayed once (with Carol when she worked in his firm) and feels genuinely guilty . . . cut Carol off immediately after his failure, freeing her up to track down her next target.

Bobby Medina: Good husband and father . . . neighbor of Tom's . . . Raskin's best friend at the firm . . . 3 kids . . . both have similar sporting interests.

Maryanne Raskin: obviously married to Tom Raskin. Good friend to . . . 

Alicia Medina: She's unhappy in her marriage to Bobby . . . been stepping out, the latest is also a lawyer, of course . . . 3 young kids . . . When the wives and kids spend a few days in Atlantic City, she quietly has a rendezvous with her latest paramour . . . 

Nicholas Delvicchio: Carol's brother, also in the legal field (I think) . . . has bailed Carol out of various jams gone bad . . . paid for her rehab . . . loyal to a fault to his sister.

Marsha: engaged to Nicholas . . . hates Carol with a passion . . . thinks Carol is just using her brother as an always-there safety net . . . a bit of a shrew . . . comes from money and daughter of a retired, but still connected, judge.

SUPPORTING CAST

Jerry Sloane: a partner in a firm where Carol has cast her post-Tom snare . . . well heeled, married in the process of a potentially messy divorce . . . trying to figure out how to minimize the financial loss coming from the divorce

Dominic DiNucci: NY mobster . . . meets Carol on the Atlantic City boardwalk . . . talks her into quit chasing lawyers and join his cadre of dancers at his posh Manhattan club.  

Parents: Carlos and Maria (of Alicia); Jorge and Rose (of Bobby)

Paul: Alicia Medina's current fling

Hope I got that all correct - apologies to the Knuckmeister if I've screwed up. Should've taken notes while reading. Oh, well. 

 

Here we go. Carol and Raskin engage in some 'harmless' flirting at his firm. One night, he gets too drunk with Carol and, despite knowing better, still allowed a front seat hummer that has him immediately angry with himself. Tells Carol no way to anything in the future and struggles with telling Maryanne. Carol moves on to her next conquest (Jerry) and scores pretty big despite him being a pig. 

Meanwhile, Medina is getting concerned that his wife is having an affair (with Paul). When the truth comes out, Medina goes off the deep end where his actions have devastating consequences far beyond himself that will likely affect multiple generations within his circle. 

From a basic summary of the plot, that's it. There's some tangential mob involvement. Otherwise this is a tale of broken families and the depths people struggle with when infidelity rears its ugly head. No one is left unaffected or unbroken. It's Charlie's skill with the spoken word that draws us in. The dialogue, always the centerpiece of a Stella novel, is convincingly realistic drawing the reader into the fears, regrets, guilt, and sympathy for those victimized by Carol's selfish and childish behavior. 

We also are torn between the back and forth of friends and spouses, adult children and their parents, as we attempt to find a winner and a loser in this complex foray into human shortcomings. Don't look for a bang up solution (typical of a Stella mob story) because I'm betting he wants us to question all sides of this mess. In the end, there are solutions of course, but there are also some unresolved actions that'll stay with you well after you close the book. 

Bottom line boys and girls: This is one helluva a story . 

Charlie's departure from crime may leave some fans scratching their collective heads, but when it comes to delivering a tale that is rife with complex character development and lean righteous dialogue, I defy to you find a better active writer than Charlie Stella.

 

due to be published in early in 2026. Keep checking with Stark House Press or Amazon