Thunder Bay: A Cork O'Connor Mystery (Cork O'Connor ... (ISBN 0743278410)

Thunder Bay:
Another Krueger hit. An excellent character study with an appropriate amount of action and romance.

Predictible But Enjoyable:
This is formula Krueger, which isn't bad, but you kinda know where the book is going to go and how it's going to end. We learn an awful lot about Henry Meloux, including what a stud he was in his younger days. And we learn how Cork O'Connor's family handles another crisis. All in all it was a good, if somewhat contrived, read. No big surprises. And I'll keep reading Krueger's works in the future.

Laconic north woods hero and his Indian friend's story:
Corcoran O'Conner is facing parallel situations: in both of them, there is the old story of `boy meets girl - they fall in love - and a baby ensues' However, the differences between them are that one situation took place 70+ years ago between his adopted `uncle' while the other is taking place right now and involves his daughter. In addition to balancing these two, he is also balancing his life between his hamburger stand in the north woods of Minnesota, his past life as the local sheriff, and his wife's career as a lawyer. This is a mystery thriller so we quickly get drawn into the affairs of his 90+ year old `uncle' (Henry Meloux) and only get occasional glimpses into the current affairs of his daughter and her boyfriend. Meloux has been a father figure to Cork, and so when Meloux is admitted to the hospital because of unspecified problems, Cork rushes over to be told that he needs to find Meloux's son. Cork is given a vague location of somewhere in Canada, and a gold watch that has a picture of a woman in it. Meloux tells his story to Cork and it is a love affair that blossomed briefly between Meloux and a young woman named Maria in the far Canadian woods as Maria's father and an associate searched for gold. When Maria's father finds out about the love affair, he is furious and that is the last that Henry sees or hears of Maria. However, now Meloux has visions that tell him that he had a son by Maria and that son needs his help. As contrived as this plot may seem, the author manages to pull it off by having his laconic hero start investigating and unravel the story and what transpired in the 73 years between the love affair and the current situation. There are plenty of interesting twists and turns to this story as there are plots within the plot and each of the characters seems to have a double life going on. Nothing is as straightforward as it seems and it is no surprise that many of the people we meet have hidden agendas and follows their own paths. I was struck by a couple of ironies that bear mention: the first is that when Cork goes to Canada on his last visit, he brings a rifle and comments on how sensible the Canadians are about firearms - they dislike them. However, the final part of the story is an orgy of violence and bloodletting where each actor has hand guns, rifles, and ammunition galore. The body count gets as high as five people in one wild shooting spree - in Canada! The second main irony is that when Henry tells his story of how he met Maria he is airlifted to the Canadian north. In a seaplane. He has no trouble recounting how he pulled on the propeller to start the motor - not once, but twice. However, given the timelines of Henry's life, that must have taken place in the 1920's which did not have too many people flying around in seaplanes! Let alone own one!! Putting these ironies aside as minor issues, I enjoyed reading this book and thought that the plot was reasonable, reasonably complex, and that the way it ended was acceptably heartwarming. This is clearly part of a series of mysteries or thrillers featuring O'Connor but it can be read as a stand alone book with no problems. I enjoyed this book and hope you will as well.

Great development of the medicine mnan's character:
This is my 2nd Cork O'Conner book, RED KNIFE being the first. I was quite intrigued by the character of Henry Meloux in that book, and was glad to find more of his story in this book. Henry Meloux's story actually fills the middle part of the book. Meloux requests O'Conner to find the son he fathered but never saw long ago. This leads to attempted murder and O'Conner's deeper involvement. henry Meloux's story in itself is an intense one of love, treachery, and all that. And O'conner's involvement places him and his friends in danter.I like the way that the author injects the relationship of O'Conner and his family and the strain that his following a P.I. career places on his home life.Needless to say, I'll be reading many more books in the series.

Good story ruined by a bad ending:
I'd read the previous stories in this series and, most of the way through the novel, felt that this was gong to be one of the better ones. Unfortunately that feeling ended as the novel neared its end, when an interesting new character was killed-off, and a messy family situation was resolved way too easily. (Spoiler alert: What?? He killed off Trinky? What the h*** for? Why did this character have to die? Her death served no purpose, other than perhaps to let the author pat himself on the back for avoiding a 'happy ending'. Is the author worried that he might not be considered a 'serious' writer. Pahh. Instead he commits an even worse sin by conveniently letting the daughter's unwanted pregancy end in a miscarriage. Ohh, puh-lease!) Besides all of this, where is the storyline in which Cork has to deal with the rape of his wife that had recently occurred? He goes to 'Copper River' briefly and when he gets back, the rape just gets forgotten? No counseling? No grief? No emotional or medical complications? So to recap: although this was an interesting book, it failed to deal with one major issue from a previous book and it had a very disappointing finish. So, I'm not sure I'll even bother continuing with the series.