Iron Lake

Cork O'Connor, Book 1

By: William Kent Krueger

Narrated by: David Chandler

Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Anthony Award-winning author William Kent Krueger crafts this riveting tale about a small Minnesota town’s ex-sheriff who is having trouble retiring his badge. Cork O’Connor loses his job after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide—and no one but O’Connor suspects foul play.

Solve another case with Cork O'Connor.

©1998 William Kent Krueger (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Krueger makes Cork a real person beneath his genre garments, mostly by showing him dealing with the needs of his two very different teenage daughters. And the author's deft eye for the details of everyday life brings the town and its peculiar problems to vivid life." ( Publishers Weekly)

Good book for the road.

Goid book for the road. Keeps you awake on a long run. Good narrator. Good mystery.

Fans of Pickett and CJ Boxx will enjoy.

Recommended by a friend and did not disappoint. Reminds me of the Joe Pickett series although this has more literary aspirations. First in the series but hope it continues to avoid the temptation of killing the development of a character for a cheap thrill ending.

Engaging story

While I enjoy mysteries, my main genre of late has been urban fantasy, but my mother really likes this series. Add the Minnesota setting (lifelong Minnesotan here), and strong Native American elements (a background I typically enjoy in my reading) and I had several reasons to give this a try.

I actually liked this a lot more than I expected, enough to pick up the next few books in the series before I even finished this one. It started a little slow for me as it took me a while to warm up to,Cork—I prefer stories where I like the main characters, because I want to be cheering them on—but I did get there eventually. The story was layered and, once beyond the first couple of chapters, the pace and action picked up and had me resenting interruptions and eager to get back to it. There are plenty of interesting, well-rounded characters, and the background of both the familiar Minnesota locations and the Native culture added a lot of richness to the story. I would have liked a little more conclusion, or maybe an epilogue to follow up with the characters, but I expect I’ll find what I’m looking for in the coming books.

I thought the narrator did a great job throughout. I don’t want to be paying attention to the narration instead of the story; if I don’t have to think about the narration and I don’t have trouble telling characters apart, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, and this narrator succeeded admirably. I did see a review criticizing the narrator’s accent—well, more the lack of a Minnesota accent, I think—but as a Minnesotan myself, it wasn’t something I noticed.

All in all, an entertaining story that gave me both Longmire and Tony Hillerman vibes, and I’ll definitely be continuing on with the series.

Wasn’t so sure after reading Lightening Strike

After reading Lightning Strike and loving it, I found order of Cork O’Connors story. Iron Lake was first. Took me a minute but I loved it!!! On to the next one!

Great all the way through!

Really enjoyable! Great plot and characters. Always like a story narrated by David Chandler. I’ve just started this series after a friend recommended and plan to continue based on this one, Thank you.

Great Narration

Northern Minnesota murder mystery. Lots of richly developed characters. Not my favorite William Kent Krueger novel, but it was well written, and the guilty party wasn't blatantly obvious.

Audible now requires text reviews

If you want to leave a star review, audible now requires a text review. I don't know about you but I leave star reviews to remind myself which authors and narrators I do and don't like. I don't like being required to leave a text review if I want to make a start review. I hope audible fixes this soon.

A nice series

Better than average, this series is interesting with compelling characters. Not really a fan of Jo yet, but hoping she grows on me.

I really love this book

This is the first in a series of many books with this character. I thought I would give it a try, because I love to find a good series that I can just keep reading one after another, but it doesn’t always work out. This time, however, it did! I will definitely keep reading, the rest of these books

Old school murder mystery

This book was released in 1991. So no cell phones, and it’s all about who is cheating on who with them being terrible parents. But that being said, I didn’t mind the narrator, who sounds like your grandpa reading to you in the living room, and the story was interesting. Good thing it was free on my audible plus.