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1. Iron Lake

2. Boundary Waters

3. Purgatory Ridge

4. Blood Hollow

5. Mercy Falls

6. Copper River

7. Thunder Bay

8. Red Knife

9. Heaven’s Keep

10. Vermilion Drift

11. Northwest Angle

12. Trickster’s Point

13. Tamarack County

14. Windigo Island

15. Manitou Canyon

16. Sulfur Springs

17. Desolation Mountain

18. Lightning Strike

19. Fox Creek

20. Spirit Crossing

21. Apostle’s Cove

William Kent Krueger

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Cork O’Connor Books In Order

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The Cork O’Connor mystery series immerses readers in the rugged and untamed wilds of Minnesota, infused with the deep history of Native American culture and populated with a richly drawn group of characters.

Central to the stories is part Ojibwa and part Irish Cork O’Connor, who is the former sheriff of the fictional Tamarack County and works as a private detective at the start of the series.

Fans of the series single out William Kent Krueger as a master storyteller, who draws them in with his lyrical, descriptive prose, nail-biting suspense, and complex characters. Gritty, elegiac, and with elements of classic private detective novels, William also weaves in elements of environmental conservation, small-town politics, Native American culture, and layered family dynamics, providing readers with far more than simple crime fiction stories.

When William Kent Krueger is asked by readers where they should begin his series, he always recommends they start with Iron Lake (Book 1) because his series unfolds in “real time,” meaning Cork and his family age and change as the series progresses. However, he changed his advice after writing Lightning Strike (Book 18), which is a prequel novel to the Cork series. Lightning Strike is essentially a standalone novel, and readers do not need any prior knowledge of the characters or events in the series to enjoy it. William says the book gives an excellent introduction to the characters and settings that the reader will meet again when they begin reading the series from Iron Lake.
Iron Lake (20th Anniversary Edition)

1. Iron Lake

The 20th anniversary edition of the first novel in William Kent Krueger’s beloved and bestselling Cork O’Connor mystery series—includes an exclusive bonus short story!

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Boundary Waters

2. Boundary Waters

Former small-town sheriff Cork O’Connor leads a desperate search-and-rescue mission into the unforgiving Minnesota wilderness in this “gritty, bloody adventure”…

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Purgatory Ridge

3. Purgatory Ridge

Not far from Aurora, Minnesota, lies an ancient expanse of great white pines, sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe. When an explosion kills the night watchman at wealthy industrialist Karl Lindstrom’s nearby lumber mill, it’s obvious where suspicion will fall.

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Blood Hollow

4. Blood Hollow

When a high school student’s body is found and her boyfriend goes missing, tough-as-nails former sheriff Cork O’Connor is forced into the center of an eerie mystery with a shocking twist…

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Mercy Falls

5. Mercy Falls

In this “smart and satisfying” Booklist award-winning mystery from William Kent Krueger’s stunning Cork O’Connor series, the charismatic detective faces his most dangerous case to date.

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Copper River

6. Copper River

Sheriff Cork O’Connor is running for his life—straight into a murderous conspiracy involving teenage runaways…

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Thunder Bay

7. Thunder Bay

Leaving behind a stressful law enforcement career to become a private investigator in his small Minnesota hometown, Cork O’Connor is asked by an Ojibwe healer to help him find the son the man fathered years earlier

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Red Knife

8. Red Knife

Private investigator Cork O’Connor finds himself caught in the middle of a racial gang war that’s turning picturesque Tamarack County, Minnesota, into a battlefield.

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Heaven's Keep

9. Heaven’s Keep

You can’t keep Cork down, and in the next riveting novel in William Kent Krueger’s award-winning mystery series, Cork O’Connor again rises to the top as he investigates the disappearance of his beloved wife.

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Vermilion Drift

10. Vermilion Drift

William Kent Krueger’s gripping tale of suspense begins with a recurring nightmare, a gun, and a wound in the earth so deep and horrific that it has a name: Vermilion Drift.

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Northwest Angle

11. Northwest Angle

With his family caught in the crosshairs of a group of brutal killers, detective Cork O’Connor must solve the murder of a young girl in the latest installment of William Kent Krueger’s unforgettable New York Times bestselling series.

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Trickster's Point

12. Trickster’s Point

The action never stops in the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor mystery series—and this time O’Connor is targeted by a political assassin.

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Tamarack County

13. Tamarack County

Cork O’Connor returns for “hold-your-breath suspense” Booklist, starred review in the thirteenth novel in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.

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Windigo Island

14. Windigo Island

Cork O’Connor battles vicious villains, both mythical and modern, to rescue a young girl in this riveting mystery from New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author William Kent Krueger.

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Manitou Canyon

15. Manitou Canyon

Cork O’Connor disappears days before his daughter’s wedding while searching for a missing grandfather.

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Sulfur Springs

16. Sulfur Springs

The New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary Grace weaves a vivid and pulse-pounding thriller that follows Cork O’Connor’s search for a missing man amid the fraught tensions at the border between Arizona and Mexico.

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Desolation Mountain

17. Desolation Mountain

William Kent Krueger delivers another heart-pounding thriller as Cork O’Connor and his son Stephen work together to uncover the truth behind the death of a senator on Desolation Mountain and the mysterious disappearances of several first responders.

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Lightning Strike

18. Lightning Strike

An instant New York Times bestseller, this prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series is “a pitch perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale”…

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Fox Creek

19. Fox Creek

The New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series returns as Cork races against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries.

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Spirit Crossing

20. Spirit Crossing

A disappearance and a dead body put Cork O’Connor’s family in the crosshairs of a killer in the twentieth book

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Apostle's Cove

21. Apostle’s Cove

The New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery series—a “master class in suspense and atmospheric storytelling” —continues with Cork O’Connor revisiting a case from his past and confronting mysterious deaths in the present.

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