Have you heard how cool William Kent Krueger is, and come wondering which book to jump into first? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Krueger’s career is a testament to dedication and following one’s passion — and the unmatched power of a very good book.
In his bio, Krueger discusses growing up in a “family full of wanderlust” where the only constant in his life was “the dream of becoming a writer.” After honing his craft for decades — in between a colorful collection of jobs like logging and construction — he published his first novel, Iron Lake, in 1998 at the age of 47.
Today, Krueger has written over 20 books to much acclaim, from standalone novels to the widely popular Cork O’Connor Mysteries series (which may be adapted for the screen in the near future).
With such a prolific catalog, it can be challenging to know where to start: Should you read William Kent Krueger’s books in order? Or find a ranked list of his bestsellers?
Here, I’ve laid out my recommended reading guide, but the truth is, you can’t go wrong no matter how you proceed (the ranking is essentially a combination of “best of” and sequential, because there’s nothing more frustrating than unknowingly reading a series out of order!). My personal favorite is This Tender Land.
I recommend beginning your William Kent Krueger reading journey with some standalone novels before you dive into the Cork O’Connor books. This allows you to get a feel for his style (which you’ll surely fall for) in shorter doses before committing to a long series.
Ordinary Grace took home a slew of awards in 2014, including the Edgar, Barry, and Anthony Awards for Best Novel and the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel.
To be sure, this is no ordinary mystery. Yes, it has a high body count, kicking off with a young boy found dead near the train tracks, followed by a chain of murders that set off a desperate search for a killer. But the heart of the story centers on the 13-year-old narrator as he comes of age, grappling with grief and faith in a small town in the early 1960s.
The next Krueger standalone, This Tender Land, became an instant bestseller in 2019 among publications like the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and more.
Set at the height of the Great Depression, it follows four young Native American orphans traveling the Mississippi River after escaping an assimilation school. They meet other drifters along the way, and the river itself plays an important role by connecting the children to the outside world. As they search for a new home, they also witness the rapid development of society around them.
3. Iron Lake
Now it’s time to dive into Krueger’s debut — which happens to be the first entry in the Cork O’Connor Mysteries. This series, set in Aurora, Minnesota, follows the titular Cork O’Connor, a reluctant private investigator who’s part Irish, part Ojibwe Indian.
The Ojibwe are part of the greater Anishinaabeg people, an Indigenous group from around the Great Lakes. On his blog, Krueger discusses incorporating Indigenous culture and characters into his novels, saying “I write a lot about the Anishinaabeg, and for good reason. In the area in which I’ve set my series, their influence is ubiquitous.”
Iron Lake introduces us to Cork O’Connor, an ex-sheriff with plenty of personal problems, including a crumbling marriage. Despite his own struggles, Cork is drawn into a conspiracy-filled mystery after a town judge commits suicide (or did he?) and a young boy goes missing.
The second Cork O’Connor novel brings us back to Aurora — more specifically, the surrounding Quetico-Superior Wilderness, where Cork searches for a missing country singer, an Anishinaabeg woman named Shiloh.
But he’s not the only one. Several others, including some very shady characters, are also on Shiloh’s trail for nefarious reasons related to her mother’s unsolved murder.
This Northeastern Minnesota Book Award–winner is a bloody game of cat-and-mouse backdropped by brutal terrain and mortal terror. It also calls attention to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). (A national day of awareness for MMIW is recognized yearly in the U.S. and Canada on May 5.)
A deadly explosion at a lumber mill sparks Cork’s return to private investigation, but this time, he’s torn between two worlds.
On the outskirts of Aurora lies Minishoomisag, also called Our Grandfathers. This sprawling pine forest is sacred to the Anishinaabeg, who have been avidly protesting the lumber mill’s plans to cut down the pines. Of course, residents of Aurora are quick to blame the tribe after the explosion.
Cork is called to investigate, but his heritage — not to mention his wife’s job as legal counsel to the Anishinaabeg — leaves him feeling conflicted. A growing list of suspects and layered characterizations make Purgatory Ridge a suspenseful story like none other.
6. Blood Hollow
When Charlotte Kane, a high schooler and daughter of an Aurora doctor, is murdered, everyone blames her ex-boyfriend, Solemn Winter Moon. Despite Solemn’s poor reputation as an Ojibwe “bad boy,” Cork is convinced of his innocence — especially since there are other, more suspicious suspects about.
And then another body appears. The victim? Also Charlotte Kane.
That’s right. This case is far twistier than anyone in Aurora — or us readers — could have imagined.
7. Mercy Falls
In the fifth Cork O’Connor Mystery, Cork once again dons a sheriff’s badge, presiding over Tamarack County, Minnesota.
A domestic violence alert draws Cork and his deputy to the Ojibwe reservation, but when shots ring out upon their arrival, it’s clear the call was a trap. Who would want to kill the recently appointed sheriff? That question becomes even murkier when a corrupt local businessman is murdered, drawing his wealthy family into town (one of whom has a history with Cork’s wife).
The finale of this tense procedural sets the stage for new challenges in Cork’s life and career that will hook readers in even further.
8. Copper River
Once a sheriff, now a hunted man, Cork — sporting a bullet wound to the leg — makes a run for it to Bodine, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where he hides out with his cousin, Jewell, and her son, Ren. But Cork’s own troubles are quickly overshadowed by distressing happenings in Bodine, including the disappearance of Ren’s best friend.
From its dramatic opening chapter to its power-packed end, Copper River thrusts Cork into a chilling search for predators who target the most vulnerable members of society.
9. Thunder Bay
In the multi-award-winning seventh book about our favorite detective, Cork O’Connor is safe and sound back in Aurora (for now). He’s once again an ex-sheriff, choosing to start his own private detective agency instead.
Then he gets a call from Henry Meloux. The elderly Ojibwe medicine man, who’s been a close friend and spiritual adviser to Cork for years, has a challenging request: He wants Cork to find the son he fathered over 70 years ago.
The search takes Cork across the border to Canada and right into the heart of a tangled family drama that turns bloody.
10. Red Knife
Red Knife delves into timely social issues, with Cork taking a significant stance against gun violence. This installment of the series also pays greater attention to Cork’s family members and their individual journeys, including his wife, Jo, and their daughter, Anne.
Racial tensions rise to untenable heights in Aurora when a white woman dies by overdose. Her father blames the Red Boyz — a group of young men from the Ojibwe reservation rumored to be selling drugs. Before long, revenge begets revenge begets revenge, with Cork caught in the middle due to his mixed-race heritage.
11. Heaven’s Keep
In what’s arguably Krueger’s most emotional entry in this series, Cork O’Connor’s next investigation hits far too close to home.
Six months ago, a plane carrying Jo O’Connor, Cork’s wife, disappeared over Wyoming at the height of a snow storm. His already overwhelming grief is amplified when he discovers the assumed crash may not have been an accident.
As Cork stops at nothing to uncover the truth about Jo’s fate, his family and faith are tested in new and painful ways.
By now we’ve explored nine of Krueger’s Cork O’Connor stories and are fully immersed in the series. That means it’s an ideal moment for a short break (I certainly needed time to recover from the heartache of Heaven’s Keep).
The River We Remember, a 2023 standalone and Edgar Award nominee, showcases Krueger’s signature ability to create characters that are both flawed and sympathetic — and that feel like someone you know.
Set in the 1950s in a small Minnesota town still reeling from World War II, this suspenseful and heartfelt mystery explores the prejudices and lingering trauma of global conflict. When a leading citizen of the town is murdered, suspicions fall on a newcomer, a Native American vet who is married to a Japanese woman.
13. The Levee
One more story before we return to Cork O’Connor’s adventures. It’s a novella — clocking in at just over three and a half hours — so it’s easy to complete this gripping suspense audiobook in a single afternoon.
The story is based on a true historical event: the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In Krueger’s tale, four men (three of whom are convicts serving their sentences, the other the leader with his own hidden agenda) attempt to rescue a family from their home as flood waters rise, but the stubborn patriarch refuses to leave.
Instead of completing their original mission, the men decide to fortify the levee surrounding the property. As they race against time, several of them consider using this moment to make their escape. In our climate changed world, where floods are becoming more and more common, this affecting story hits home.
14. Vermilion Drift
Welcome back to Cork O’Connor Mystery territory. In the 10th novel, the P.I. has entered a new and unwelcomed phase of life where his home feels entirely too empty.
But bigger societal ills plague the town. The government’s plans to use a local iron mine as a toxic dumping ground sparks community outrage — and a new case for Cork to solve. Before long, he stumbles upon a cave full of corpses. Some are decades old, while others fresh. Still more startling, a few of the bodies are riddled with bullets that match a gun once owned by Cork’s dad.
In their review of Vermilion Drift, Kirkus calls Krueger “one of those rare writers who manage to keep the suspense alive until the final page.”
15. Northwest Angle
The O’Connor’s idyllic family reunion turns nightmarish when Cork and his adult daughter, Jenny, discover a murdered Indigenous teenager and, near the body, the victim’s dehydrated infant, left for dead. Then a violent gunman begins stalking Cork, Jenny, and the baby, intent on keeping the crime quiet.
Northwest Angle won the Lovey Award for Best Thriller in 2012.
One of my favorite things about Krueger is how he always manages to add a fresh angle to his stories, even in a series with 19 books (and counting). In Trickster’s Point, we get a glimpse of Cork O’Connor’s coming-of-age years through numerous flashbacks.
Jubal Little is on the cusp of becoming the first Native American governor of Minnesota when he’s shot through the heart with an arrow belonging to Cork, who’s been friends with Little since boyhood. Someone is trying to frame the private detective — but why, and more importantly, who?
17. Tamarack County
The sheriff of Tamarack County calls on Cork (who used to hold the badge himself) when a retired judge’s wife goes missing. As Cork struggles to track her whereabouts — a pursuit that revives a case from decades previously — his own family is in the midst of big life changes and emotional choices.
Tamarack County is as much a family drama as a mystery, giving readers more insight into Cork’s teenage son, Stephen, and adult daughters, Anne and Jenny.
18. Windigo Island
In book 14, Windigo Island, we hear Jenny O’Connor’s perspective alongside her father’s after they both get involved in a human trafficking case.
Two teenage girls from Wisconsin vanish. A year later, Carrie’s body is found, but 14-year-old Mariah is still missing. Jenny, now a mother, feels compelled to find Mariah, but the truth behind her disappearance reveals the very worst side of humanity.
19. Manitou Canyon
The beauty and ferocity of nature is on full display in Manitou Canyon, as are the demons that plague Cork O’Connor. When he disappears while investigating a potential crime, his family knows something is very, very wrong.
As his loved ones search the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for any sign of Cork, the private eye is caught up in a dangerous conspiracy plot. Dual perspectives ratchet up the tension, while Native mysticism adds a meditative quality to this thriller.
20. Sulfur Springs
Krueger trades his typical wilderness setting for the desert, but his vivid descriptions of the natural world are just as immersive.
Sulfur Springs sees Cork remarried to Rainy, an Ojibwe woman and niece to Cork’s spiritual advisor, Henry Meloux. When Rainy receives a troubling voicemail from her adult son in Arizona, she and Cork set out to find him — alerting the attention of some troubling characters near the southern border.
Cork’s now-grown son Stephen, who’s always felt a strong spiritual connection to his Ojibwe heritage, sees a troubling vision of a bird falling to its death. When a private plane carrying a U.S. senator crashes, killing its passengers, Stephen is unsurprised — and determined to help Cork find answers.
But soon, it’s clear that the government doesn’t want them anywhere near the case. And then first responders to the scene start disappearing, one by one.
Krueger weaves Native lore with detective work, making this 2018 mystery extra intriguing.
22. Lightning Strike
Though Lightning Strike in is the 18th Cork novel, it’s actually a prequel to the entire series — taking us back in time to 1963 Aurora, Minnesota.
When 12-year-old Cork stumbles upon the hanged body of an Ojibwe man he knew and respected, the young boy refuses to believe it was a suicide. Liam O’Connor, Cork’s father and the sheriff of Aurora, takes on the case, but Cork (unsurprisingly) isn’t willing to sit back and watch his dad do all the work.
Since this novel sets the stage for Cork’s future in law enforcement and detective work, you could choose to read it first, before diving into the rest of the series. As for me, I prefer to read books in the order the author wrote them, and I liked having knowledge of Cork as an adult to reflect upon as I read this story from his childhood.
23. Fox Creek
We’ve finally reached the most recent book in the Cork O’Connor Mystery series, published in 2022.
In Fox Creek, Cork pursues a pair of mercenaries through the Minnesota forest as they hunt Henry Meloux, an Indigenous healer, and two women he’s trying to protect, including his great-niece and Cork’s wife, Rainy. A cat-and-mouse dynamic ramps up the thrills while Meloux’s ancient wisdom and the claustrophobic setting create a rich atmosphere.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Cork O’Connor next. Thankfully, we don’t have to wait long — book 20 in the series, Spirit Crossing, is expected in August 2024.
24. The Devil’s Bed
Krueger’s debut standalone novel (released in 2003) is a political thriller, but its rural Minnesota setting and the hero’s unstoppable thirst for the truth will ring familiar to Cork O’Connor fans.
First Lady Kate Dixon, who’s marriage to the president is on the rocks, rushes home to Minnesota after her father (himself a retired politician) has a near-fatal farming accident. Except, some don’t believe it was an accident at all, including Bo Thorsen, Kate’s Secret Service bodyguard.
Bo must balance protecting Kate with solving what quickly becomes a messy government conspiracy, all while a madman stalks their periphery.
