Hi everyone, our June gathering will be a week later than usual, so yours truly can attend staff training.

So we’ll be meeting at the library, in the Conference Room, one week later than usual, on Friday, June 16 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Our June Read is:

The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama, copies can be picked up at the Circulation Desk at any time.

And here are the notes for our May meeting:

Our May Book Club gathering was held on Friday, May 12, 2023.

Our May Read was Fox Creek by William Kent Krueger.

Fox Creek is the nineteenth book in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, which starts out with the mystery Iron Lake.

The main cast of Fox Creek includes:

The Good Guy Team:

The landscape – the mysteries are set in and around Aurora, Minnesota, which the author describes as being “A stone’s throw from the Canadian border.” And the author offers compelling descriptions of the landscape, almost as if the landscape is another character, in the mystery novels of the series, including this one.

Cork O’Connor, former police chief of Aurora, a private investigator and owner of Sam’s Place, a burger joint, at the edge of Iron Lake. Notably, Cork’s grandmother was a member of the local Iron Lake Ojibwe tribe. So Cork has a connection to the local Native peoples, including his wife Rainey and the elder healer Henry Meloux.

Henry Meloux, a Ojibwe elder, a member of the Grand Medicine Society, and a healer and spiritual advisor who has a home on the edge of the wilderness, between Aurora and the local Native American Reservation. 

Rainey Bisonette, Cork’s second wife a great-niece of Henry Meloux who assists Henry in his medicinal/healing ceremonies.

Stephen O’Connor, 21-year-old son of Cork and his late first wife Jo. Stephen has inherited Ojibwe spiritual gifts from his paternal great-grandmother and catches glimpses of future events in dreams. Stephen has previously had a dream showing Henry Meloux laying spread eagle on the ground as if he were dead. When Stephen told Henry about his prophetic dream, Henry replied that he had had the same dream.

Jenny O’Connor, Cork and his late wife Jo’s eldest child. Jenny is married to Daniel Bisonette, a nephew of Cork’s wife Rainey. She is also the mother of Aaron Small Dog O’Conner also know as Waabo or “Little Rabbit.”

Delores Morriseau, a woman looking for guidance, who as the book opens is with Henry and Rainey at Henry’s house, on the edge of the wilderness, is participating in a healing ceremony. Dolores’s husband Lou is currently missing.

Louis Morriseau, a real estate agent and a person of European and Native ancestry who has chosen to forgo forging a connection with his native heritage. Louis travels for work and frequently travels to Canada.

Anton Morriseau, Louis’s brother and a tribal policeman.

Bell Morriseau, Louis’s younger sister.

And in opposition, the Bad Guys Team:

An imposter Lou Morriseau who shows up at Cork’s burger stand looking for Delores

Kimball the man in charge of the bad guys.

And most prominently, on the bad guy side, the brains of the operation,  a former military man named LeLoup who has Native American heritage, a sixth sense about tracking prey and people, but who did not know his parents and has thus far led a wandering life, never putting down roots, simply becoming a mercenary for hire who is most comfortable in a wilderness setting.

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With those characters in mind, the basic plot of this adventure tale, briefly introduces Cork and Stephen who are flipping burgers at the family burger stand and meet a man who introduces himself as Louis Morriseau. This imposter tells Cork that he thinks his wife, Dolores, is having an affair with a local man, Henry Meloux. Cork doubts the man is who he says he is, is suspicious of his motives and clandestinely takes a photo of the man to show Henry and Dolores whom he believes is at Henry’s house.

The trio at Henry Meloux’s place, include Henry himself, aged about 100, Rainey and Dolores. Henry, has a spiritual sense about the world and has spent much time over the years in the woods that border his home – he is an outdoorsman of exceptional skill with dashes of Native spiritualism mixed in. And Henry leads Rainey and Dolores into the wilderness  and away from the danger he senses is coming; basically, away from the bad guys that are tracking Dolores. Readers learn that the bad guys are after Dolores as a means to making her missing husband Louis give them information they believe he has; what the information is, isn’t disclosed until readers get near the end of the book.

Cork visits Henry’s home to show Henry and Dolores a photograph of the fake Louis, and Dolores confirms the man in the photo isn’t her husband. Everything seems fine at Henry’s place, so Cork goes home, expecting Rainey to come home later – when she doesn’t arrive, he returns to Henry’s house and discovers the trio is gone, that bad guys are pursuing them; and he, in turn, and with the assistance of Louis’s brother Anton, pursues the bad guys hoping to bring Henry, Rainey and Dolores home safely.

And then Stephen goes on a side trip to visit Louis and Dolores’s home, and eventually Louis’s parent’s home on a quest to gather more information on Louis and what he has been working on. While on this mission he meets Louis’s sister, Belle, who joins him on the trip and they gather information that leads them to believe Louis is hiding out at the family’s cabin in remote Canada.

Returning to the other characters, Cork and Anton are still in the wilderness tracking the bad guys pursuing Henry, Rainey and Dolores.

And as one of the bad guys, LeLoup continues tracking the Henry/Rainey/Dolores trio he experiences a gradual spiritual awakening and eventually comes to the conclusion that the tracking mission he was paid for – to find Dolores – isn’t important – understanding the spiritual road he has found himself on, becomes his goal; and with Henry’s assistance and a spiritual ceremony that allows him a greater understanding of who he is – LeLoup, becomes known as The Prophet and switches sides from the bad guys team, to the good guys team.

Cork is eventually able to find Rainey, Henry and Dolores and is followed by a local recue team. Everyone, sans Henry, who intends to return to his home on foot, goes back to Aurora.

Longer rest-of-the-story short, Cork and Anton join Stephen and go to the Morriseau family cabin in Canada, where they find the real Louis who has been injured.

While the Cork-Anton-Stephen team are looking for and finding Louis, LeLoop, now the Prophet, goes to Cork & Rainey’s house in Aurora, where Rainey, Jenny, Daniel and Waboo are currently residing; because he realizes the head bad guy, Kimball, will break into the O’Connor family home to try and get information from Rainey and will likely kill her and other members of the family in the process.

LeLoop/The Prophet arrives at the Connor family home just in time, saves Rainey and then travels to Canada to assist the Cork-Anton-Stephen team in defeating the bad guys and getting Louis back to civilization safely.

And in the end, it turns out the big secret that Louis has been hiding and is ready to make public, is a secret international conspiracy to divert water from the wilderness, and lands of native tribes in the region and, in essence, leaving the local populations, in the impacted area, without an adequate supply of water.

LeLoop become The Prophet and goes on his now much more altruistic way into the wilderness. Louis is taken to a hospital for treatment and subsequently released and reunited with Dolores and the Cork-Stephen-Anton team returns home.  

Then the locals, and family members, gather at Henry Meloux’s cabin waiting to see if the ancient, and beloved, healer will return from the wilderness, or if the vision Henry and Stephen experienced means that his long-life is over and he will not return. Days and nights go by, Cork, Rainey and other locals wait around the campfire at Henry’s house. And…Henry returns saying that he is pleasantly surprised to find that his time to leave the physical world is not yet at hand.

End of book!

Several book club members loved the book and said they would like to read more titles by William Kent Krueger

The Cork O’Conner Mystery Series book order can be found here: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/william-kent-krueger/cork-oconnor/

Other book club members didn’t care for the book finding it a bit long, the switching of stories from Cork & Anton to Henry, Rainey & Dolores, to Stephen and Belle, distracting. And others said that the ending, having the locals and Cork, Rainey & family wait around the campfire for Henry to return, or not return – seemed superfluous.

And the book club hostess has thought about it, and decided that perhaps reading a book in a series, isn’t the best pick for a book club as there are story threads and character development that you might not be aware of if you only read one book in the series – but that you would be fully aware of if you read all the books in a series, making the reading experience much more fun. So we’ll skip reading any future series books for our book club; unless, of course, someone in the club recommends a series book that they think is outstanding.

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Book Club Members Recommended Reads & Views for May:

Catharine, Queen of the Tumbling Waters by Cynthia G Neale: A story of another strong woman, a real life Native American with French blood who lived in the 1700s in Pennsylvania and New York during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Catharine Montour, obscure, but a heroine in our history, meets Benjamin Franklin and leads her people to safety when the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign to destroy all Iroquois villages is enacted. Another strong woman who breaks the lock on history’s understanding of Native American women. The author lives in the Finger Lakes region.

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Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964): Director Robert Aldrich’s all-star shocker concerns a Southern family with several skeletons in its closet. Believed by many to have murdered her lover over 30 years earlier, aging, reclusive-and wealthy-spinster Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) begins to lose her grip on sanity just as distant cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland) comes to live with her. Could it be a coincidence, or is something more sinister taking place? Joseph Cotten, Victor Buono, Mary Astor co-star in this macabre suspenser.

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The Kate Burkholder Mysteries by Linda Castillo

Book One is: Sworn To Silence: This is an exciting new thriller set against an English/Amish backdrop. Some secrets are too terrible to reveal… Some crimes are too unspeakable to solve… Painter’s Creek, Ohio may be a sleepy, rural town with both Amish and ‘English’ residents, but it’s also the place where a series of brutal murders shattered the lives of an entire community over a decade ago. When the killing stopped, it left in its aftermath a sense of fragility, and for the young Amish girl, Katie Burkholder, a realization that she didn’t belong. Now, 15 years, two dead parents and a wealth of experience later, Katie has been asked to return as Chief of Police.

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Psycho (1960): The Alfred Hitchcock’s landmark masterpiece of the macabre stars Anthony Perkins as the troubled Norman Bates, whose old dark house and adjoining motel are not the place to spend a quiet evening. No one knows that better than Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the ill-fated traveler whose journey ends in the notorious “shower scene.” First a private detective, then Marion’s sister (Vera Miles) searches for her, the horror and the suspense mount to a terrifying climax where the mysterious killer is finally revealed.

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Three Pines TV Series (2022): Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team investigate a series of perplexing murders in the mysterious Eastern Townships village of Three Pines, uncovering the buried secrets of its eccentric residents and in the process forcing Gamache to confront buried secrets of his own. Based on the Louise Penney mysteries.

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The Tony Hillerman Leaphorn And Jim Chee Series: Book One is: The Blessing Way (1970): Witchcraft appears to be involved in the death of an Indian, whose body is found in Many Ruins Canyon, and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is charged with the task of solving the crime.

Viewing Note: There is a TV series based on the Hillerman western Leaphorn & Chee mysteries, titled Dark Winds, starring Zach McClarnon on AMC – that has received great reviews.

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Have a great day!

Linda