Marilyn's Mystery Reads

It is a case that Cork O’Connor has never forgotten, even though it had taken place more than twenty-five years ago.  Thus, when his son calls to tell him, “Dad, I think you sent an innocent man to prison,” every detail of the brutal murder case comes back.

Stephen O’Connor is a law school student, working for a non-profit organization seeking to free unjustly imprisoned people, and he comes across the case of Alex Boshey, a member of the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota.  Boshey was accused of murdering his wife, stabbing her seven times with a fireplace poker.  An alcoholic, Alex at first doesn’t remember exactly what happened the night of his wife’s death; his response to Cork’s question of whether he killed his wife is, “No.  I don’t know.”

Alex admits he and his wife fought a lot and that he wanted a divorce but Chastity didn’t.  Their fights were known throughout the county, and the consensus is that he’s guilty.  After a day or two in the county jail, Alex admits to killing his wife, although he says the details of the attack are still not clear in his mind.   The case goes to a jury, which finds Boshey guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment.  Still, Cork has questions about the man’s guilt, but there’s nothing more he can do.  And there it rests for a quarter of a century.

Now Cork and his wife Rainy are invited to dinner with Stephen and his wife Belle.  When they arrive, there are two other guests present–Sunny, the “adopted” daughter of the imprisoned Alex Boshey, and Marianne Polaski, daughter of a woman Alex was having an affair with while he was married to Chastity.  Marianne agrees with Stephen that her father is innocent of Chastity’s murder, and she wants Cork to investigate.

Sunny also tells Cork that her sister, Moonbeam, has done some ancestry research and that the latter’s DNA proves that she and Moonbeam are half sisters through their mother, Chastity, but although Alex is Sunny’s father, he is not Moonbeam’s.  It’s a complicated family history.

All of Cork’s guilt comes rushing back, his belief at the time of Alex’s arrest and conviction that the man was not guilty of Chastity’s death and his inability to prove it.  This is his second chance, but it won’t be easy after more than two decades have passed.  And there’s also the fact that Alex has made a life for himself while incarcerated, quitting alcohol and helping others with their struggles with sobriety, and he doesn’t want to leave the prison.  He feels healed and wants to help others, something he believes he can best do where he is.

William Kent Kruger has written another winning chapter in the story of Cork O’Connor and Tamarack County, Minnesota.  Cork and his family and friends are true to life, and the story of stolen or broken lives due to anti-Native American prejudice and alcoholism are unfortunately all too believable.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.