Lightning Strike

Lightning Strike, an instant New York Times bestseller, is a prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series. It is described by Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author, as "a pitch-perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale" about fathers and sons, small-town conflicts, and the events that shape our lives forever.

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. For twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, the summer of 1963 is filled with the familiar rhythms of his hometown, akin to his own heartbeat. However, when Cork discovers the body of a respected man hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it initiates a series of events that challenge everything he assumed about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and is responsible for confirming the man's death as a suicide, as all evidence seems to suggest. In the shadow of his father's official investigation, Cork begins a quest for answers of his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

In this "brilliant achievement, and one every crime reader and writer needs to celebrate" (Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author), beloved novelist William Kent Krueger demonstrates that some mysteries can be solved even as others remain beyond our understanding.