Windigo Island

On The Reservation

Cork O’ Connor is an unusual private eye—he is part Native American, used to be the sheriff of his town, runs a burger joint and takes up cases as and when something comes up. He has a cop-like thoroughness to his investigation, but does not dismiss traditions rites as mumbo-jumbo.

William Kent Krueger’s Windigo Island is the fourteenth in the Cork O’Connor series, and has all the nail-biting suspense and action of a good thriller.

Cork lives around the Native American Reservation, which the locals call ‘rez’ and is a peaceable sort. Against the backdrop of an island on Lake Superior that is rumoured to be home to a mythical beast, the mystery of one dead and one missing girl unravels. Rez lore has it that if anyone hears the Windigo monster calling their name, it means their days are numbered.

 When the books open, a bunch of boys discover the body  of a teenage girl called Carrie Verga. She had disappeared  along with her Ojibwe friend Mariah Arceneaux and after  some cursory questioning the local cops had ignored the  case, since teens from the Reservation were always  running off in search of better opportunities. Most of them  were hit hard by the racial discrimination in the outside world and returned on their own; or were never found.

  Mariah’s crippled mother, Louise requests her grandfather  a native clairvoyant Henry Meloux for help in tracing her  daughter, and he summons his disciple Cork to do the job.    Cork is prevailed upon by his daughter Jenny to take up the  case and search for Mariah.  Jenny leaves her own adopted  child Wooboo behind to assist her father.

 What they discover is a shocking flesh trade ring that is the  best kept secret on the reserve. For years, young Native girls have been forced into prostitution, brutalised by the pimps and killed off if they rebel or outlive their utility. The cops conveniently look the other way, and locals pretend nothing is wrong. Cork is up against a particularly vicious villain, whose inhuman nature has also made him fearless.

There are not too many Native American characters in mainstream American fiction (or movies), so through the medium of a cop thriller, Krueger also tells the story of the neglect, exploitation and abuse of the Native population that has led to poverty, alcoholism and a self-destructive frustration.

Krueger has not just created interesting and sympathetic characters, but has also vividly described the beauty of the region, and also laid bare the ugliness that lies just beneath the surface. 

Windigo IslandBy William Kent KruegerPublisher: Atria BooksPages: 339 pages