The Mystery Starts Here

While I haven’t read all the books in Kruger’s Cork O’Connor series, I have read several and enjoyed them. I really wish I could start each new series character at the beginning but….

That said, I picked up “Vermilion Drift” because I was familiar with the character. Let me say right off the bat that Kruger is a very good writer. His descriptions of northern Minnesota are sharp and picturesque – you can see those clear blue lakes, hear the wind blowing through the tops of tall trees, small the fresh air. Too bad Kruger left out one important element. Mosquitoes. Hey, I grew up in Minnesota, I know. Those little buggers are all over the place and have been known to carry off small children! Okay, so that was a bit of an exaggeration. My point is that Kruger has idolized the place.

The book starts slow – not good. I teach a Novel Writing Class and always instruct my students to start in the middle of something – grab the reader and make him or her want to continue. In the beginning of “Vermilion Drift”, Max Cavanaugh, owner of a iron ore mine on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range, wants Cork O’Connor to find his sister. She’s been missing for a week and Cavanaugh is getting worried. Cork had been Sheriff of Aurora, the town closest to the mine at one time, but is now retired and only does consulting work as a P.I. The book meanders on for about 20 pages until FINALLY six bodies are found in the Vermilion mine. I won’t ever try to explain what a drift is – it took the book about four pages, four BORING pages. Well, now we finally have something interesting – especially because five of the remains seem to have been in the mine for over 40 years, since “the Vanishings” on the Indian Reservation. Of course Max’s sister is the newest member of the macabre scene.

Sound confusing? Yes, it is. There is a lot of Cork dreaming of his dead father, who was also a Sheriff, lots of characters from “the Rez.”  There are too many characters, too many subplots and quite frankly too much Indian mumbo jumbo.  Cork is one quarter Ojibwa Indian but seems to identify almost completely with his Indian roots.

There were far too many coincidences in the book, a lot of deux ex machina. I think Kruger is simply running out of ideas or getting tired of the character – or something. I figured out quite easily who killed the modern woman and throughout the story we know who killed all the older bodies. There really isn’t a lot of action in this book and I had to force myself to keep reading. When Cork finally figures out whodunit, I was happy that I’d guessed correctly and ready to close the book….but wait. Kruger wasn’t finished! He went on for about 30 more pages, having Cork sit in a sweat lodge with his old Indian friend so he could “finish the journey.” Any reader with half a brain had already figured out who killed all the people 40 years ago – the author basically told us! I skimmed the remaining pages but was disappointed. Kruger should have stopped the book when the modern mystery had been solved.

Right now I’d have to think long and hard about reading another Cork O’Connor book. Good old Corkie has grown boring.

Want to read a GOOD mystery that is exciting from beginning to end? Pick up a copy of “The Worse Evil” at www.whiskeycreekpress.com

I picked up “Sharp Objects” while working in the Friends of the Library bookstore. I paged threw the book, sat down and started reading and…couldn’t put it down. I wish I could say that was true of the entire book but…after a boffo beginning, the book bogged down and the pace never really picked up again.

The basic plot is that Camille Preaker, a so-so reporter at a third rate Chicago newspaper is asked by her editor to go back to her home town of Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the murder of one child and the disappearance of a second. Right off the bat we know that Camille has family issues, personal issues and is a raging alcoholic. I got a hangover just reading about the amount of booze Camille drank without ever apparently eating. Camille has one other little problem – she’s a cutter. And not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill cutter, no she carves words all over her body. She’s only recently gotten out of a mental institute so you have to wonder what her boss was thinking.

So, Camille goes home to her totally dysfunctional family.  She hasn’t been back home in years and once you meet mother, you’ll know why. There is somewhat of a mystery about Camille’s older sister, Marion who died young. Or…maybe not such a mystery. While trying to deal with her family, Camille is also attempting to write the story of the dead girl. Of course we find the second girl dead shortly after Camille returns home. Neither of the girls had been sexually molested but both had all their teeth pulled! Yes, it’s an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately the author sent Camille down memory lane and she met and remembered her time growing up in Wind Gap. The mystery was pretty easy to figure out and the book ended rather abruptly. I wish Flynn had spent more time on the ending and tightened up the middle. Oh well. There is some drunken awkward sex with first a detective in town trying to help out the local law – then a high school boy – eeeeuuuu. Camille is…30-ish.

Flynn is a very good writer, for instance “she sat in a room the color of egg yolks”. I loved that and many more of her descriptive sentences. However, she had a few new writer boo-b00s that somehow slipped through the editor’s fingers. For instance, at one point, drunk, she drives to a park and sits there – drinking. Her younger half-sister, thirteen-year-old,Amma, comes by with friends and convinces Camille to go to a party with them. Theres a LONG scene where she’d drinking and taking drugs with Amma. It’s pretty unbelievable, but anyhow they walk home. The next day (after massive barfing) Camille goes outside and gets in her car. Ah, where did that come from? There are several of these gaffs that the editor – or author should have caught before the book was published.

“Sharp Objects” is a slight, 250 page book so it’s fast reading. Unfortunately by the time I finished I was ready to gargle with razer blades – it was just too, too depressing. AND, I wanted to shake Camille and tell her to grow up, get off the pitty pot and make something of her life! I hate whiners.

Want to read a fun, uplifting mystery? Got a copy of my book, “FINDER!” available now at www.wildchildpublishing.com or on www.amazon.com.