The River We Remember | William Kent Krueger

Having just discovered Krueger I was interested to read his latest. It was good, readable and well-written, but I prefer other books of his. There's a lot of sadness in this book and some very unlikeable characters. (One reviewer called it a "grim story of lost souls.") It's set in 1950s small town Minnesota, with the main character being Brody Dern, the county sheriff with sadness and issues of grief, guilt, loss and love from his war years. Krueger does a great job drawing a picture of what small town life was like and showing the connectedness of people who may have left and come back, or never left. The storyline(s) of the novel are many and I think it would have been stronger if he's left one or two of them out. There are some loose ends with characters. One reviewer called it a "grim story of lost souls."

Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land are better reads. I've only read one of the Cork O'Connor stories (Purgatory Ridge) but liked that more, as well. One little nit that kind of bugged me. There is what I would consider to be an error of editing. About 120 pages in, Krueger describes the main character Brody going to the regular Sunday dinner with his family (mother, brother, sister-in-law and nieces/nephews) .About 300 pages in he describes another Sunday dinner in a way that's very, very close in wording. It seemed weird. I felt like there was a third instance of this, but I wasn't patient enough to leaf through and find it.