Windigo Island

Summary: Cork, Jenny, and Henry join in a search for a missing Ojibwe girl when her friend’s body washes up on a sinister island.

It began as a daring prank of a teenage boy trying to impress a girl. Windigo Island was a rocky outcropping in the middle of Lake Superior. If you’ve been reading the series, you know that nothing good comes from a windigo, a cannibal beast. To hear a windigo call your name is to hear oneself targeted for death. And so the island had a reputation for being haunted.. It also had a rock face that was visible from shore, perfect for spray-painted messages. Bravado wins out over fear until a weird wind comes up and a terrible something is washed up on the rocks.

That “something” was the body of a show more fourteen-year old Chippewa girl, Carrie Verga. She, and her friend, Mariah Arceneaux, had disappeared a year before. Mariah’s family, related to Henry Meloux and Rainy, reach out to Cork for help in finding Mariah. Because of the way Rainy contacted Cork, Jenny decides to come along. And when she hears the story of the missing Mariah, she decides that she must be part of the search, which Cork reluctantly accepts. Because of the family connection, Henry insists on joining the search as well, even though he is nearly one hundred.

As it turns out, they are all needed–Jenny’s research, Cork’s investigative skills, and Henry’s quiet but courageous wisdom. For they are facing far more than a missing girl. Rather, they are facing a formidable enemy, a windigo, who even uses that name. He heads up a trafficking operation of underage girls servicing the needs of the men on lake freighters out of Duluth, male executives on yachts, and ultimately, North Dakota oil rig workers. Despite warnings, and despite both Cork and Jenny hearing their names from the windigo, the team persists, convinced that Mariah is in thrall to Windigo.

An Arceneaux family member, Daniel English, a game warden, also joins them. In an interesting subplot, Daniel and Jenny show a developing interest in each other. All of them make their way to North Dakota. To hear one’s name by a windigo marks one for death. But Cork and Henry have faced this before. Confronting a windigo means both facing down one’s fears, and becoming something of a windigo oneself. The question is, is Jenny up to this? The climax will have you on the edge of your seat.

As is already obvious, Jenny plays a big part in this book and Krueger develops her character further. Krueger also continues to explore the cost to Cork of standing between evil and those he cares about. This does not come without dangers to his soul. He needs Henry, though he does not always realize it.

Finally, William Kent Krueger exposes the evil of child sex trafficking. Whether servicing men in remote settings or the billionaire set, we see how perpetrators groom them and how men use them and discard them like trash. However, we also see the courageous work of those who seek to rescue women and work with survivors. Sadly the reality of the need for such work is no fiction. show less

This was my first novel by Krueger but it will not be my last! He has a subtlety to his writing style that keeps the pages turning. The plot is pretty straightforward, though not completely predictable, but it is really the characters and their interactions that move the work forward. Add to his diverse and well modeled characterizations both his knowledge of Native American life in the modern U.S. and his knowledge of their legends and it is a formula for an engaging read. Corcoran O'Connor is a part Irish, part Ojibwe private investigator and in this novel his investigation becomes a family matter. Cork has heard the windigo call his name and it calls for uncommon courage to face teh ancient legend. But it is just a legend after all. show more O'Connor discovers, however, that real life offers its share of windigos to plague us and it is only with uncommon courage that we, too, can stand against the darkness. show less

After the body of a young Indian girl washes up on Windigo Island, Cork is asked by the mother of another girl who has disappeared to help find her. Cork and his daughter Jenny are lead into an investigation of the trafficking and sexploitation of teenage runaway girls and the conditions that make them run away; abuse, alcoholism, prejudice, lack of job opportunities. They soon find that they must do battle with a man called Windigo, the name of a mythic Ojibwe monster. Cork’s anger pushes him to a murderous confrontation that frightens his daughter and causes her to question what kind of man he is.

When the body of a teenage Ojibwe girl washes up on the shore of an island in Lake Superior, the residents of the nearby Bad Bluff reservation whisper that it was the work of a deadly mythical beast, the Windigo. But as soon as Cork O'Connor, former sheriff turned private investigator, starts asking questions about the girl and her missing fifteen-year-old friend, Mariah, no one will talk. Holding tight to his vow to find Mariah for her desperate family, Cork makes his way to the old port city of Duluth - a modern-day sex trafficking center. With only the barest hope of saving her from men whose darkness rivals that of the legendary Windigo, Cork prepares for an epic battle that will determine whether fear, or love, will truly conquer all.

I keep telling myself that it is impossible to keep my interest in this series for as long as Krueger has. My reservations aside, he continues to immerse me in his Minnesota world. This is a gripping story of loss, gain, hurt, love, evil and hope. The O'Connor family continues on its journey of finding each other. The settings are vividly described from Duluth to the North Dakota shale fields. The characters are many dimensional and interesting for both their strengths and weaknesses. My affinity for this series continues to grow. I only hope we will also get another separate book like Ordinary Grace, which is one of the best coming of age books I have read.

Another good entry in a very good series. Mr Krueger continues to use Native America issues as a focal point for Cork and his family to engage with and resolve. Child abuse and sex trafficking are the areas for examination in this latest novel about Northern Minnesota and its numerous indigenes.

Number 14 in the Cork O’Connor series. This is another page-turner of a book. Kept me going throughout. No one can set a plot sequence as good as William Kent Krueger. In this one Cork, Mailloux and Jenny are on the track of a particularly scary villain who has assumed the Native American name of Windigo. Lots of native lore and particularly heinous villains. The only downside is Cotk’s oldest daughter, Jenny. I have never cared for her and in this book I found her particularly obnoxious and totally judgemental. I honesty felt like slapping her on numerous occasions. Anyway, in spite of Jenny’s obtrusive presence, Cork manages to track this villain all the way to North Dakota. The final showdown with Cork, Henry Malloux and, of show more course, Jenny against Windigo was exciting. Cork was mentally invested in this case. He felt personally responsible for all the lost and killed little girls that got caught up in this Windigo’s web. This is a wonderful, series. Highly recommend. show less