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Zusatztext "William Kent Krueger is one of the best mystery writers out there. Any reader who has yet to pick up one of his Cork O'Connor suspense novels is in for a rare treat." -- Vince Flynn Informationen zum Autor William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember , This Tender Land , Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), and the original audio novella The Levee , as well as twenty acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Spirit Crossing , Fox Creek , and Lightning Strike . He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com. Klappentext The newest book in Krueger's award-winning Cork O'Connor series finds the charismatic private investigator caught in the middle of a racial gang war that's turning picturesque Tamarack County, Minnesota, into a bloody battlefield.Red Knife ONE The words on the note folded around the check in his wallet read: Here’s $500. A retainer. I need your help. See me today. The note and the money were from Alexander Kingbird, although it was signed Kakaik, which was the name of an Ojibwe war chief. It meant Hawk. Five hundred dollars was a pretty sound enticement, but Cork O’Connor would have gone for nothing, just to satisfy his curiosity. Although the note didn’t mention Kingbird’s situation, it was easy to read between the lines. In Tamarack County, unless you were stupid or dead you knew that Alexander Kingbird and the Red Boyz were in trouble. How exactly, Cork wondered, did Kingbird think he could help? Kingbird and his wife, Rayette, lived on the Iron Lake Reservation. Their home was a nice prefab, constructed to look like a log cabin and set back a hundred yards off the road, behind a stand of red pines. A narrow gravel lane cut straight through the trees to the house. As Cork drove up, his headlights swung across a shiny black Silverado parked in front. He knew it belonged to Tom Blessing, Kingbird’s second-in-command. It was Blessing who’d delivered the note that afternoon. And it was Blessing who opened the door when Cork knocked. “About time,” Blessing said. He wasn’t much more than a kid, twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. Long black hair falling freely down his back. Tall, lean, tense. He reminded Cork of a sapling that in the old days might have been used for a rabbit snare: delicately balanced, ready to snap. “The note said today. It’s still today, Tom,” Cork said. “My name’s Waubishash.” Each of the Red Boyz, on joining the gang, took the name of an Ojibwe war chief. “Let him in.” The order was delivered from behind Blessing, from inside the house. Blessing stepped back and Cork walked in. Alexander Kingbird stood on the far side of his living room. “Thank you for coming.” He was twenty-five, by most standards still a young man, but his eyes weren’t young at all. They were as brown as rich earth and, like earth, they were old. He wore his hair in two long braids tied at the end with strips of rawhide, each hung with an owl feather. A white scar ran from the corner of his right eye to the lobe of his ear. Cork had heard it happened in a knife fight while he was a guest of the California penal system. Kingbird glanced at Blessing. “You can go.” Blessing shook his head. “Until this is over, you shouldn’t be alone.” “Are you planning to shoot me, Mr. O’Connor?” “I hadn’t thought of it, but I may be the only guy in this county who hasn’t.” Kingbird smiled. “I’ll be fine, Waubishash. Go on.” Blessing hesitated. Maybe he was working on an argument; if so, he couldn’t quite pu...
