Another great book from this reliably excellent author that features a mixture of intriguing characters, a mystery that keeps you guessing and a satisfying conclusion.

5 enthusiastic stars!!!

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the advanced reading copy of William Kent Krueger's The River We Remember. Fabulous book! Always enjoy Krueger's writing style. Great characters; they are deep and believable. This book has it all, everyone has skeletons in their closets, a story to tell and a reason for why they did the things they did. Good one! Highly recommend. Read July 31- Aug 4,2023.
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William Kent Krueger is arguably one of the finest writers of any genre. His characters, stories, and writing lock readers in until the last page. The River We Remember is no exception to this rule.

The writing is solid, creating a vivid atmosphere, but the plot is a mix of captivating moments and predictability. Characters are well-developed, though some lack depth. Pacing fluctuates, making it a decent but not outstanding read.

Krueger is the best at combining indigenous people into his small town mysteries. Loved the layered characters and the slow building of tension. Happy that Krueger is writing amazing stand alone novels.
Highly recommend.

Absolutely loved it - a gem of a book! One of my favorite authors and this did not disappoint. The perfect blend of mystery, historical fiction, and character-driven plot.

The River We Remember is the first book by William Kent Krueger I have read but it will certainly not be my last. It is filled with fully drawn characters in a small Minnesota town that are regular people living their lives during one fateful summer yet the way they are written is just…magical. The phrase “lyrical prose” is always a bit overused but it certainly applies here.

I have seen some reviews that say there are too many characters to keep track of but I absolutely did not have that problem.

I have seen it mentioned that fans of Louise Penny would enjoy Mr Krueger’s stories and I can definitely see that after reading The River We Remember, their styles are very similar.

I received an e-arc from NetGalley (thanks to the publisher and author) but this was also a Book of the Month pick and I bought a hardcover with my membership.

Thank you to @netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy. The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger is a mystery set in Minnesota in the 1950’s, after WW II. There is a murder, and the community immediately blames a man who is a Native American, a veteran, and married to a Japanese woman he met during the war. There is a lot of prejudice and small town politics, and the location plays a big role in the book. The story is slow, but the characters are well developed. Compelling read, especially if you like small town stories. #theriverweremember #williamkentkrueger #netgalley #advancedreadercopy #arc #murdermystery #smalltown #bookstagram #booklover #reader #bookblog #lovetoread #fictionreader #bookreview #bookrecommendation #readersofinstagram #bookloversofinstagram #takeapagefrommybook #readallthebooks #booksbooksbooks #booksofinstagram #bookwormproblems #bookaholic #booknerd #whattoread #readingtime #bookaddict #ilovetoread #ilovebooks #needtoread #readallday

Jimmy Quinn is a ruthless landowner in a small Minnesota town. When his body turns up in the Alabaster River, everyone suspects murder, but anyone could have done it. They all hated him.

The River We Remember is a delicately crafted novel written by masterful storyteller, William Kent Krueger. Although it begins a little slow, the time Krueger takes to introduce each of the characters and their families is necessary. By a quarter of the way in, I felt like I personally knew every character and was vested in what would happen to them. The plot was masterfully laid out to tell the perfect story.

The River We Remember was one of my favorite books of 2023. I absolutely loved it! Thank you NetGalley for an arc of this masterfully written book.

the latest from the author of THIS TENDER LAND — comes THE RIVER WE REMEMBER

“When the body of a wealthy landowner is found floating in the Alabaster River on Memorial Day in 1958, Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero, struggles to solve this murder that has the town of Jewel, Minnesota, up in arms, while putting to rest the demons from his own past”

you get a historical mystery + small town Midwestern setting + tackles racial/culture prejudices in the late 1950s + lotsss of character development — personally, this felt like a slow burn mystery … not a lot of twists and turns, rather this was more of a journey through this small town learning about the characters as you go — as much as I love my slow, detailed, atmospheric reads, I did feel like this was maybe 100 pages too long 🙊 (421 pages total!!)

sooo in my opinion, THIS TENDER LAND > THE RIVER WE REMEMBER .. if you haven’t read TTL, what are you waiting for?! if you liked TTL and are looking to go back to small town Minnesota, check out TRWR !

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I had never read a book by William Kent Krueger and had always heard many great things about them so I felt extremely pleased to be accepted to read an arc of The River We Remember. I found this story that takes place in the late 1950’s in the small town of Jewel, Minnesota to be a very captivating read. It’s a murder mystery that includes topics such as prejudices, marital infidelity, abuse and sexual assault of young women. The story mainly centers around the Sheriff Brody Dern and his investigation into the murder of Jimmy Quinn. Quinn was one of the wealthiest men in town but was not liked by many. Because this story takes place after the war, many of the men were experiencing signs of post-traumatic stress. Sheriff Brody Dern included. Evidence points to Noah Bluestone, a Native American and former employee of Quinn’s as being the guilty party but was he really or is that just prejudice thinking and maybe there is another twist to the story that the reader doesn’t foresee? This was a phenomenal read, one that held my interest the entire way through and a book I would strongly recommend to others. I’d like to thank Atria Books @ Simon & Schuster for accepting my request and NetGalley for the arc. I look forward to reading all of this authors backlist and I’m giving this a much deserved 5 star rating!

In the southwest corner of the state of Minnesota is the small town of Jewel. It is 1958 and the War is still fresh in people's minds and Memorial Day has significant meaning to most. But this particular Memorial Day, while many are celebrating the day, the body of Jimmy Quinn (a wealthy, local landowner) is found in the Alabaster River - dead from a shotgun blast.
No one seems to upset at his passing, not even his own family (a daughter living in Iowa won't even come back for the funeral) but the general talk in town is that it might have been a suicide (he's tried before and he was a heavy drinker) but it was most likely a murder done by Noah Bluestone. Bluestone, a local Native American who grew up in Jewel, had worked for Quinn and was fired by Quinn just days before the murder.

Despite growing up in Jewel, Bluestone has always been an 'outsider'. Being 'Indian' is enough to have most convinced he committed the murder, but coming home from World War II with a Japanese wife (who also worked for the Quinn's) has really set him apart. Now the community has already decided he's guilty and some are getting restless and want to take action.

Sheriff Brody Dern finds himself with more than he can handle alone - investigating the murder and protecting Noah Bluestone whether he's guilty or not - and gets help from the recently retired sheriff and a part time deputy.

There's definitely a lot to like about this book. Author William Kent Krueger definitely knows how to tell a good story and he's no stranger to the mystery genre. The writing here is poetic - lyrical and hypnotic. His writing will definitely draw the reader in.

I did have a couple of complaints, however.

First, Krueger spends an inordinate amount of time setting up and then telling us that Noah Bluestone is guilty. He's the first, and for the longest time, only suspect. But then something will happen (a gut feeling from the sheriff or a piece of evidence) and we won't think he's guilty, but then Krueger goes right back to telling us that he must be guilty. Frankly, there was so much attention being paid to Bluestone that it seemed pretty clear to me that Krueger was setting us up for it to be someone else. It was just too much time and attention trying to make it seemed like Noah was guilty.

The ending was a surprise for me, which I appreciate, and I think that we might have had some hints of where this was going to go very early, but then we were led down the Bluestone path. The meat of the story - the actual murder investigation - doesn't happen until quite late in the book.

A very minor point, but one that kept my from being truly immersed in the book. As a western reader I expect to find the names of people, places, and things that are familiar to me. Especially here in a book that takes place essentially just a few miles from where I live. An unfamiliar name will stand out, and probably for good reason (like "Bluestone"). So why confuse us (or me, at least) and give our male protagonist, the previous sheriff, what we might generally consider to be a feminine name (especially in 1958) - "Connie" while a female lead in the book (who doesn't appear until chapter 13) the typically male name of "Charlie". Connie and Charlie, male and female, respectively.

Since I don't sit down and read the book in one sitting, I'd come across a name and have to remind myself "Connie is the male sheriff and Charlie is the female lawyer" which slowed the reading down.

I enjoyed the insight in Noah Bluestone and I liked the very little bit we got to know his wife but it was too little and very much too late. The second half of the book is really excellent, but you have to read a lot about how Noah Bluestone must be guilty before you get there.

I can understand Krueger maybe wanting to take a break from his Cork O'Connor series, but darned if I don't miss him.

Looking for a good book? The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger is a historical police procedural mystery with beautiful writing but a bit slow on developing the mystery.

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

William Kent Krueger has been writing since the late 1990s, but he only came onto my radar in 2019, when he published This Tender Land. To read Krueger once is to want to read him again and again, as often as is possible, and that’s what I’ve been doing. The River We Remember is his most recent mystery, an achingly atmospheric novel set during the 1950s in rural Minnesota. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The protagonist in this stand alone whodunit is the local sheriff, Brody Dern. Brody is a thoroughly believable character; there’s nothing of the TV sheriff about him. When the wealthy, universally hated Jimmy Quinn is found floating dead in the river, Dern does not lose sleep while vowing to find and reveal the entire truth. His first response is his own deep resentment that Quinn had to go and die in what had been, until now, Brody’s favorite spot to relax. How dare stupid, rotten Jimmy Quinn ruin this special place with his bloated corpse? And his second instinct is to minimize the damage to everyone else concerned. For example, the Quinns are Catholic, and if Jimmy committed suicide, they can’t bury him with the family. If not suicide, then perhaps a family member could stand it no more and shot him dead. Again, if so, no great loss, and let’s make sure the family is taken care of. And so, Brody’s first instinct is to wipe down Quinn’s truck so that, if other authorities should become involved in the case, none of these poor people will have to suffer for it.

Then, he goes to the evidence cabinet and removes some of the confiscated drugs so that he can get a decent night’s sleep.

Part of what fascinates me here is the culture of small town Minnesota during this time period. People don’t lock their doors most of the time. When a prisoner that Brody knows is almost certainly innocent requests a sharp knife in order to carve something, Brody gives it to him, right there in the cell. There are a number of interesting secondary threads, and all contribute to the steamy, smoldering ambience in which this story is set.

But oh lordy, the racism. And in this, I know there is no exaggeration. The culture among the Caucasian population of this tiny town, with regard to Native peoples and those of Japanese descent is not so very different from what I experienced as a child, growing up in the 1960s and even the 1970s in suburbs on the American West Coast. It’s bad. It’s really bad.

A feature of Krueger’s work—a signature aspect, in fact—is the inclusion of American Indian cultures and sociopolitical issues in Northern Minnesota. In other stories I’ve read, it’s been the Chippewa; this time, it’s a Dakota Sioux man named Noah Bluestone, and his Japanese wife, Kyoko. The author develops his characters well, with no stereotypes or hackneyed pop culture. This alone makes his work worth reading, but there’s so much more.

Over the course of just a few short years, Krueger has joined other luminaries on my list of authors whose work I read without question. I highly recommend this book to all that love the genre.

The River We Remember was just the book I needed to read right now. Set in 1958 in a small town in Minnesota, Jimmy Quinn's body has just been found and Sheriff Brody Dern now finds himself with tasked with figuring out how Jimmy Quinn met his end. There are many people in Jewel, Minnesota that have an ax to grind with Jimmy but could his death simply have been an accident.

This novel is full to the brim with fully developed characters, many flawed but at the same time beautiful. The author gracefully handles what attitudes might have been toward those who were different at that time in history. You really feel like you come to know everyone in the small town and learn more about who they are protecting or what their motivations are. It's an absolutely beautifully written book and I love when a plot unfolds that I wasn't expecting. I also appreciated the epilogue and felt it was the perfect resolution.

Highly recommend this book for an engaging escape that will have you trying to figure out what happened to Jimmy Quinn and exactly who is hiding what or protecting whom.

I received this book courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

William Kent Krueger has done it again with The River We Remember, a captivating mystery set in the heart of small-town Minnesota. Set on Memorial Day 1958, the story opens with the discovery of the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. His death sparks a complex and engrossing investigation led by Sheriff Brody Dern; a highly decorated war hero haunted by his past.

Even before Dern gets the autopsy results, rumors implicate Noah Bluestone, a Native American war veteran burdened by prejudice and his marriage to a Japanese survivor of Nagasaki. The sheriff struggles to determine whether it was an accident, suicide, or murder, and to calm the townspeople.

As always, the author’s portrayal of the characters and the world they inhabit immerses the reader. From the newspaper publisher to the war widow and Quinn’s second wife, each character is crafted with intricate backstories that add depth and richness to the narrative. The novel is not just a mystery but a masterful portrait of mid-century American life, capturing the essence of a bygone era with authenticity and detail.

In The River We Remember, William Kent Krueger has crafted a spellbinding mystery that combines the lingering scars of war and the complexities of small-town life. While the multitude of characters and subplots may require some effort to keep track of, the payoff is well worth it. It is an interesting read that combines the allure of a small-town mystery with profound insights into human nature. Whether you’re a fan of Krueger’s previous books like I am or a newcomer to his writing, this novel is sure to please. His latest novel is a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2023), so I’m not the only reader who thinks his work is fabulous. 5 stars.

** Thanks to the publisher for providing a complimentary copy of this novel. The opinions are my own.

Thank you, net galley, for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a beautiful story. I enjoyed it all, and couldn't put it down. This was my first read by this author, and will not be my last!

Another brilliant novel from William Kent Krueger. I have loved all of his standalone novels and this was no exception. His rich narrative with beautiful description is like no other. This is a story that unfolds slowly with characters that captured my heart.

Lovely book story and writing. Pulled all the punches. Great characters, setting and writing. Another hit for this author!

3.5 stars.

Wow. This book covers so many heavy topics. The characters were so well written and had a backstory I was compelled to read more of.. HOWEVER, I felt like the murder mystery aspect of it was very slow. It starts off very quick with finding the body, then slow… slow… slow…. And predictable. I called who the killer was not too far into the book.

I loved WKK’s writing style, and do think I’ll pick up another one of his books. This book was good… but not great.

As with all of his novels, William Kent Krueger has crafted a brilliant novel that so eloquently weaves prose and action and adventure into a book readers will not soon forget. He is one of the best writers alive right now, and every one of his books are so emotional and thoughtful and suspenseful. Bravo for another brilliant novel.