Talking Volumes: William Kent Krueger on 'Lightning Strike'

Hometown writer William Kent Krueger and host Kerri Miller delved into what it means to go back into the life of a character he knows so well as part of the Talking Volumes season finale at the Fitzgerald Theater.

Krueger’s latest book is “Lightning Strike.”

From the publisher:  

The author of the instant New York Times bestseller “This Tender Land” returns with a powerful prequel to his acclaimed Cork O’Connor series — a book about fathers and sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever.

Aurora is a small town nestled on the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to 12-year-old Cork O’Connor. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family and himself.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

In this masterful story of a young man and a town on the cusp of change, beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.