Published by Atria Books on September 2, 2025
Apostle’s Cove tells two stories, separated in time by a quarter century. The story begins in the present, when Cork O’Connor’s son tells him that a man he sent to prison might be innocent. The novel quickly moves back to a time when Cork was a sheriff to explain why Axel Boshey was convicted of murder, even though Cork doubted that his confession was true.
A girl named Chastity was the daughter of a woman named Aphrodite. Chastity wasn’t particularly chaste, but she didn’t have nearly as many sex partners as her mother. Chastity married a Native American named Greensky but had at least one other lover, raising questions about the paternity of the child born to their marriage.
When Greensky died in an alleged hunting accident, his friend Axel was widely viewed as his killer, despite an investigation that cleared him. Chastity married Axel soon after Greensky’s death and Axel adopted her son. They had a child of their own, whose biological father was also uncertain. They were no longer having sex by the time Chastity’s body was found with multiple wounds made by a fireplace poker.
The novel’s first part follows Cork as he tries to solve Chastity’s murder. A fair amount of evidence points to Axel. He had argued with Chastity that night. He was wildly drunk. She was pregnant with another man’s child. Axel wanted to divorce her, but she threatened to keep the kids from him if he did. He claims to have no memory of killing her, but his clothing, covered with her blood, is found in a nearby shed.
Many members of the community are convinced of Axel’s guilt, including Rocky Martinelli, a deputy sheriff who hates Indians. Cork is less certain, but the matter is taken out of his hands when Axel decides to confess.
In the present, Axel has been in prison for a quarter century and has no great desire to leave. He has started a counseling program to turn around the lives of Native American prisoners. When Cork’s son, an intern at an Innocence Project, finds evidence that Axel might be innocent, Cork sets about reinvestigating the case. That task brings him back to Aphrodite and her collection of lovers, to the town librarian (who may have had a motive to kill Chastity), to a woman who claims to have been purified by an angel who restored her virginity, and to other potential suspects.
Series fans will be familiar with Henry Meloux, a Native American healer who gathers knowledge by listening to the woods. Henry plays a role by suggesting a new path that Axel might follow if he is released from prison, contributing to the novel’s theme of redemption. Fans might also be pleased that Cork’s daughter, a novelist named Jenny, joins the hunt, and that Jenny’s son Waaboo, who senses evil spirits, plays a small but significant role. While I’m not a fan of evil spirits (or good ones, for that matter), the supernatural has little to do with the novel’s outcome.
The characters in Apostle’s Cove have family issues that add interest to the story. The solution to the mystery involves incest, quite a bit of adultery, and a variety of vices. A reader might need a spreadsheet to keep track of suspects and the relationships of characters to other characters, but William Kent Krueger includes enough internal summaries to keep the plot from becoming too confusing to follow.
Cork is a decent person who struggles with his failure to pursue the truth more aggressively twenty-five years earlier. That struggle is simply evidence of his decency. The story repeatedly acknowledges the brutal victimization that Native Americans have suffered at the hands of white haters but avoids a preachy tone. The focus is on the mystery and the steps that Cork takes to solve it. Perhaps readers who are more astute than I will be able to see past the misdirection and solve the puzzle. I was overwhelmed with data and stopped trying at some point, but the story is no less entertaining for being so detailed.
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