William Kent Krueger takes us back to Cork O'Connor's childhood and the events that led him to become the man he does. An expertly told story of a family, the relationship between father and son, and the larger community. A satisfying read!

Prior to this one releasing, I had thought it was another stand alone like my beloved This Tender Land, but it is actually the prequel to William Krueger Kent's long standing Cork O'Connor series.

Having never read a book in that series, this one did sort of read like a stand alone. I do feel that fans of the series probably got way more out of it than I did just because of character familiarity.

Not a bad read, definitely heavier on the police procedural side of things than This Tender Land ever was.

Being a Minnesotan I definitely appreciated the familiarity with towns and landmarks, but I don't think I'll be picking up this series anytime soon.

This prequel to Krueger’s acclaimed Cork O’Connor series will be welcomed by every mystery/thriller reader.

It is the summer of 1953 and young Cork is hanging with his friends and delivering newspapers in the small town of Aurora.

Cork and his best friend decide to hike into the forest and discover the rotting corpse of an old friend, the Indian called Big John.

This engrossing novel is one of the best thrillers of the year. It is also a deeply emotional coming of age novel, and an unflinching exploration of the bigotry experienced by Native Americans. Highly recommended. #LightningStrike #NetGalley #SaltMarshAuthors

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Lightning strike by William Kent Krueger
A special thanks to Atria oils and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed this title all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Another outstanding story from William Kent Krueger. This is a prequel. It’s 1963 and Cork’s father Liam is Aurora sheriff. Cork has his friends Viking baseball his paper route and his dog. When Cork and his friends finds Big John, a Native American hanging from a tree. The racial tension that Cork had never noticed before begins to boil over. Everyone believes it was a suicide but cork and his father think otherwise. The father and son work together to piece this complex mystery together. It was great to see Cork at this age and with his father whose footsteps he followed in

This one is heartbreaking and at times tough to read. Krueger is a beautiful writer with a way of really getting into your heart.

I love William Kent Krueger. This wasn’t my favorite of his books but I still really enjoyed it. I love the masculine quality he gives to his writing while also evoking empathy for the characters. This is definitely a good read and those who’ve enjoyed his other books will love this one.

at 12 years old, Cork helps his sheriff father, Liam, solve a thought to be suicide of a highly respected Ojibwa native.

This is the prequel to Krueger's Cork O'Connor series. It takes place in 1963 when Cork is almost 13 and the small town of Aurora in Minnesota's Iron Lake district is his whole world. Cork finds the body of a local Native American man hanging from a tree. Everybody is ready to accept it's a suicide but Cork and his friends want to investigate further. It's a coming of age story but also a great insight to how Native Americans (Cork being half Native American and half Boston Irish) were treated in that time period. The Native kids who were forced away from their families and how it impacted their lives and their town. This book is compelling and skillfully plotted and great insight into the Cork O'Connor mystery series. Thank you #Netgalley for my ARC. #LightningStrike

William Kent Kreuger returns to the Cork O'Connor series with prequel Lightning Strike. We follow twelve-year-old Cork as his father, Aurora’s sheriff, methodically works to answer the questions surrounding the apparent suicide of Ojibwe Big John Manydeeds. The town is in turmoil as sides are drawn. It is a summer that will define Cork and his beliefs. Fans of the series will not be disappointed. If you have not read the series, this is a great step into the world of Cork O'Connor.

William Kent Krueger is a master of storyline and atmosphere. His beautiful prose flows throughout - bringing the setting and characters to life. His writing is culturally sensitive and engaging. This novel is a prequel to his Cork O' Connor series. It is written as the 18th book and if you haven't read the series, I believe it works for the reader either way - if you read this after the first 17 books it works giving you insight to Cork O'Connor's character and his roots or if you read it first, you get the background of many of the characters that are mentioned and one sees the person that Cork becomes taking shape.

In this prequel to the popular Cork O'Connor series, Cork is twelve years old and takes an active viewing role watching his father, Liam O'Connor, the local sheriff, navigate between two worlds (the white man and the Native community) after Cork discovers the body of a man, hanged in an abandoned logging camp.

This is a really fascinating addition to the Cork O'Connor series. We get here one of Cork's first looks at what it means to be the sheriff in such a rural community, as well as what it means to walk and work among the white man while having some Native blood (did we know that about Cork? I am not familiar enough with these books to know if this was commonly revealed before).

The theme that runs through this book is "on the edge." It constantly feels as though something is about to break - tensions between the Native and white communities; tensions between individuals. As controlled and steady as Liam is (and he's a model of implacability) there is the sense that something is about to happen in his world. And for Cork we get the very clear message that this incident was his first experience with violent crime and that perhaps this, along with his father's work, was the catalyst for what he would become.

For those who are already more familiar with the Cork O'Connor books, we really come to see where Cork gets his drive for getting to the truth of a situation. Liam could easily have given in to pressures here and not followed through with some of the investigation. He is particularly pressured by the Native community to not pursue and line of inquiry into the idea of anyone on the reservation killing Big John Manydeeds.

This book is packed with just about everything you want in a good book. There's a mystery and deception. There are some red herrings surrounding the mystery. There are well-created, strong characters (and not just the principle characters). There's lots of tension, character growth, and a good, hard look at racism and bigotry. There's also just darn good storytelling.

Looking for a good book? Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger is a prequel to Krueger's popular Cork O'Connor series. It is a powerful story and a good detective mystery.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. This was my first Cork book. William Kent Krueger tells beautiful stories and I appreciate that he includes indigenous people in a fair and respectful way. I enjoyed Cork’s origin story and will read the rest of the series now.

Cork O’Connor is the focal point of Krueger’s popular police series. In this prequel, readers are introduced to Cork’s father and the relationship between the father and son. Cork is 12 and his dad Liam is the sheriff of a small town in Aurora, Minnesota. When Cork and his friends find a body hanging from a tree, the events surrounding the death become the focal point of the plot. But this is about much more than a death. There are racial tensions between the townfolk and the Indians from the Reservation. Relationship issues simmer and show the tenuous nature of familial bonds.

Cork becomes enmeshed in the case and tries to make sense of the man’s death. He and his friends are determined to uncover clues while his father conducts an official investigation. Liam is Irish, his wife a member of the Ojibwa tribe and this puts Cork in the middle, straddling the two worlds. The town has simmering issues between the two halves of their community and past injustices have not been forgotten.

This family story adds background details to fully expand the central character and is a wonderful tale of a boy who has watched his father and tries to emulate his astute powers of observation. One can’t help but love his mother who is the cement who holds them all together and who is the bridge between the two cultures. But the tension between the two groups is an underlying current that adds to the tension.

Lightning Strike takes us back to the very beginnings of the beloved Cork O'Connor series, with a prequel story of events in Cork's early life which have influenced him ever since.
William Kent Krueger says this is now the book he would recommend readers, start with in the series, instead of Book One, Iron Lake.
The backdrop for the story is a small town nestled in ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake in the summer of 1963,
Twelve-year-old Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, The discovery sets off a series of events that causes him to question everything he's previously believed.
Cork's father in the sheriff, called upon to confirm the death as suicide. But is it? Father and son each begin their own investigations, in a story which brilliantly captures the tensions between fathers and maturing sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town, and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever.,
The personal runs alongside the political in this story which evokes the emotions of a boy on the verge of adulthood, weighing up his own observations of the world around him at the same time as he watches how his father responds in a community where the demands of settler economy and native American values are in enduring conflict.
Lightning Strike combines a perceptive coming of age story, with a thriller that grapples with the intense hidden drama in cultural conflicts passed down the generations. It's equally a story of the tender tensions between fathers and sons and a nerve tingling thriller,
A lingering sense of the emotional and physical landscape remains long after the pages have turned and the book closed. Evocative, poignant, and exciting by turns, William Kent Krueger once again delights with an emotionally charged novel that packs a powerful punch.
William Kent Krueger talks about Lightning Strike and other aspects of his work on The Joys of Binge Reading podcast.

This wonderful prequel to the Cork O'Connor series is a coming-of-age story that shows how Cork lost his father and began his investigative career. Krueger's writing is always a delight.

William Kent Kruger continues to show why he is one of the best in the business. This novel locked me in quickly and it was a wild ride right until the end. Cork O'Connor is a fun character that continues to develop and change throughout the series. Love it!

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. 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.

Krueger is a masterful storyteller. I have enjoyed everything I have read by him so far. At first, I hesitated requesting this book as I am only now getting into the Cork O'Connor series after reading Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, but when I saw it was a Prequel to the O'Connor series, I did not think it would matter reading it out of order, and I was correct. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. I highly recommend this book.

I read my first William Kent Krueger book, This Tender Land, last year and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read Lightning Strike through Netgalley.com. It was only after I finished this story of a young boy leaving childhood behind, did I realize that it is a prequel to a series of 17 Cork O’Connor books. Not having read any of these stories starring a former small town sheriff, now investigator, in Minnesota, I read this book with no preconceptions. This is a rich tale with a number of strong storylines. First the ongoing hostile relations between White and Ojibwa people in this lightly populated area of Minnesota, second the question of whether the death of an Ojibwa guide was suicide or murder. Next, the inevitable secrets within families and finally, following young Cork, son of the sheriff and his Native American wife as he tries to figure out his place in this potentially explosive society. As the threads weave tighter and tighter, the reader becomes deeply involved in the lives of Cork and his two best friends — Native American, Billy and Mexican, Jorge, and also with Cork’s maturing understanding of his father.
I have only one issue with this book. Despite the adult themes which include alcoholism, sex and violence, the voice of the main character is definitely that of a thirteen year old. There is nothing wrong with that. After all Cork is the center of the story. However, there is a difference between writing about a thirteen year old and writing for a thirteen year old audience. Krueger, I’m afraid has confused the two. As a former school librarian, I recognize the tone of books written for a middle school audience — the sentence structure, word choice, simplicity of explanation. The book Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham comes to mind. Unfortunately because of the R rated subject matter this is definitely not a book for the young crowd, but the writing style is just not sophisticated enough for the adult reader. Since Krueger already has a built-in audience of Cork O’ Connor fans, I’m sure Lightning Strike will be a big hit. As a newcomer to the series, I have a different perspective .

What a story - a mystery that keeps you guessing!
What a setting - 1960s in a community that borders a Native American reservation!
What a cast of characters - growing up and facing difficult circumstances!
These threads are intricately braided into this masterpiece of a book you won't want to put down and won't want to finish. I have good news for you, though. You have 17 other books about Cork you can pick up and you won't regret it

Another home run for William Kent Krueger. This sequel is on par with the rest of his Cork O'Connor series, in fact, even better and it explains a lot about the makeup of the character. Highly recommended. Don't miss this series.