The river we remember

Title:

The river we remember

Author:

Krueger, William Kent, author.

ISBN:

9781797160993

Edition:

Unabridged audio edition.

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Suggested Age	Status
Audio Disc	Searching... Putnam Main Public Library	KRU	Adult	Searching... Unknown

I n 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by a shocking murder, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling novel, an instant New York Times bestseller and "a work of art" ( The Denver Post ).

On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn's murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn's death threatens to expose.

Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of mid-century American life that is "a novel to cherish" ( Star Tribune , Minneapolis), The River We Remember offers an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.

Author Notes

William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land , Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), as well as nineteen acclaimed books in the Cork O'Connor mystery series, including Lightning Strike and Desolation Mountain . He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Bestseller Krueger (the Cork O'Connor series) delivers a patient, character-driven standalone mystery set in the tight-knit community of Jewel, Minn. On Memorial Day 1958, county sheriff Brody Dern arrives at the banks of the Alabaster River to examine the corpse of James Patrick Quinn, Jewel's wealthiest and most despised resident. Quinn was blasted in the torso with a shotgun and the river's aggressive channel catfish have wasted no time making a meal of his flesh. While the cause of his death is clear, the circumstances are not: was it an accident, suicide, or murder? Small-town gossip has pinned the blame on "no-good" Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran, but Dern isn't convinced, and he sets out to find the truth while attempting to soothe an angry and frightened public. Krueger uses the mystery of Quinn's death to set the tale in motion, but it's merely a jumping-off point to examine "the cantankerous, laconic, bigoted, gentle-hearted, fearful, sheltered, accepting, broken" citizens of Jewel, including a newspaper publisher, a war widow, a female lawyer, and Quinn's second wife. Each is painstakingly drawn, but their intricate backstories sometimes slow the pace too much. Though Krueger's fans will appreciate his empathetic portrait of a small town in distress, readers hoping for a vigorous investigation may be disappointed. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Brown & Miller Literary Assoc. (Sept.)

Kirkus Review

Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, as it was still called in 1958) takes on new meaning for the residents of Jewel, Minnesota, when its wealthiest--and least-liked--citizen is murdered and a war veteran is suspected of the crime. The brutish victim, Jimmy Quinn, is found floating in the Alabaster River, shotgunned and chewed up by catfish. Suspicion immediately falls on Noah Bluestone, a veteran who is doubly persecuted for being a Dakota Sioux and married to Kyoko, a Japanese survivor of Nagasaki. The sheriff, Brody Dern, a highly decorated and traumatized war veteran who spent time in a Japanese prison camp, thinks about letting whomever killed Quinn, destroyer of people's lives, go free. Brody is having a dreamy affair with his brother's wife while entering into a romance with the proprietor of the local cafe, a war widow with a tainted past and a teenage son with a damaged heart. Also playing a recurring role is the riverside, where a woman's weeping voice can be heard. In the aptly named Black Earth County, stuffed as it is with current and past incidents of sexual abuse, suicides, racial discrimination, fatal diseases, and "complications of the heart," there is a lot to weep about. The latest stand-alone novel by the author of the acclaimed This Tender Land (2019) and the Cork O'Connor mysteries has so many people and subplots to keep track of it can't help losing sight of some of them, including one significant character. Fans of the die-hard Minnesotan author will appreciate his evocation of the landscape and people's connections to it. But in piercing the notion of an innocent small-town America in the 1950s, he goes way overboard. A grim portrait of lost souls. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Krueger, author of the Cork O'Connor mysteries and recipient of an Edgar Award for his 2013 novel Ordinary Grace, has crafted an absorbing standalone mystery in which he combines nostalgic settings with depictions of the lingering hardships and traumas of war and the home front (including farm labor) in the decade after WWII. Set in 1958 in the fictional town of Jewel, on the banks of the Alabaster River in southern Minnesota, Memorial Day festivities end when the body of the town's richest and most hated citizen, Jimmy Quinn, is found shot and floating in the river, his clothes and a gun on the riverbank. Sheriff Brody Dern, a WWII vet tortured by guilt about his war experiences, must determine if Jimmy's death was suicide, accident, or murder. Immediately, suspects abound, but townspeople are quick to blame a Native American man who worked for Jimmy. Krueger constructs a sort of Mayberry noir: the sheriff's department consists of one room with six cells attached, and a neighbor lady brings home-cooked meals for both the sheriff and the inmates. The narrative shuttles between a longing for this lost time and recognition that postwar America was filled with shattered veterans and war widows.

Excerpts

Prologue PROLOGUE THE ALABASTER RIVER cuts diagonally across Black Earth County, Minnesota, a crooked course like a long crack in a china plate. Flowing out of Sioux Lake, it runs seventy miles before crossing the border into Iowa south of Jewel, the county seat. It's a lovely river filled with water that's only slightly silted, making it the color of weak tea. Most folks who've grown up in Black Earth County have swum in the river, fished its pools, picnicked on its banks. Except in spring, when it's prone to flooding, they think of it as an old friend. On quiet nights when the moon is full or nearly so and the surface of the Alabaster is mirror-still and glows pure white in the dark bottomland, to stand on a hillside and look down at this river is to fall in love. With people, we fall in love too easily, it seems, and too easily fall out of love. But with the land it's different. We abide much. We can pour our sweat and blood, our very hearts into a piece of earth and get nothing in return but fields of hail-crushed soybean plants or drought-withered cornstalks or fodder for a plague of locusts, and still we love this place enough to die for it. Or kill. In Black Earth County, people understand these things. If you visit the Alabaster at sunrise or sunset, you're likely to see the sudden small explosions of water where fish are feeding. Although there are many kinds of fish who make the Alabaster their home, the most aggressive are channel catfish. They're mudsuckers, bottom feeders, river vultures, the worst kind of scavengers. Channel cats will eat anything. This is the story of how they came to eat Jimmy Quinn. Excerpted from The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Wilson, C.J.,

Audio disc

SD_ILS:886456

English

2023

Krueger, William Kent, author.

Wilson, C.J., narrator.

Memorial Day -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Nineteen fifties -- Fiction.

Psychic trauma -- Fiction.

Sheriffs -- Fiction.

Veterans -- Fiction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans -- Fiction.

Minnesota -- Fiction.

Minnesota -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Audiobook -- Adult

Fiction -- Historical mystery

Krueger, William Kent, author.

Wilson, C.J., narrator.

Indians of North America -- Fiction.

Memorial Day -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Nineteen fifties -- Fiction.

Psychic trauma -- Fiction.

Sheriffs -- Fiction.

Veterans -- Fiction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans -- Fiction.

KRU

Minnesota -- Fiction.

Minnesota -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Indians of North America -- Fiction.

Memorial Day -- Fiction.

Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Nineteen fifties -- Fiction.

Psychic trauma -- Fiction.

Sheriffs -- Fiction.

Veterans -- Fiction.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans -- Fiction.

Minnesota -- Fiction.

Minnesota -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Audiobook -- Adult

Fiction -- Historical mystery

Indians of North America -- Fiction.

2023

The river we remember

2023

On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn's murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past. Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn's death threatens to expose.

9781797160993

11 audio discs : digital, stereo ; 12 cm.

Unabridged audio edition.

William Kent, author. Krueger

C.J., narrator. Wilson

The river we remember

Fiction

Adult

Putnam Main Public Library

Audio Disc

10810000143838

KRU

Cabell

ITEM

Available:*

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Excerpts

Excerpts