How well did you know the kids you played with?

Back when you were young, you might’ve said you knew them well. You had sleepovers and shared secrets and toys. Their mothers were nice ladies whose names all started with “Mrs.” Their dads were always tinkering and loved to tease you about something or other.

Yep, those kids you played with all the time, you knew all about them. Or did you?

Cork O’Connor thought he’d seen the soul of the man he’d known since they were children. But in the new book Trickster’s Point by William Kent Krueger, it turns out Cork didn’t know a thing.

It took three hours for Jubal Little to die. Cork O’Connor watched his friend bleed to death, knowing he should go for help but not knowing if there was time. He waffled, but Jubal didn’t want to die alone, so Cork finally sat, listening, while Jubal died with one of Cork’s arrows in his heart.

They met when Cork was just 14. He’d been walking around that day with Willie Crane, who was born with cerebral palsy, and Willie’s sister, Winona, when a group of bullies showed up – and Jubal, big as a bear, swept in and rescued them from a sure beating. That was the day Jubal became a sort of protector for Willie Crane.

That was also the day Cork, who loved Winona with adolescent fervor, understood he’d never win her heart because Jubal Little captured it.

But now Jubal was dead, killed with a handmade weapon in hunting grounds known as Trickster’s Point. The Ojibwe claimed strange things happened there, and Cork couldn’t think of anything stranger than Jubal’s murder … until another body showed up, a stranger with a fake ID and an arrow through his skull.

An arrow like that which killed Jubal – one that looked exactly like those Cork crafted.

Jubal’s family seemed happy to point fingers and others wanted to lay blame on the obvious, but Cork O’Connor didn’t kill Jubal Little, and he didn’t kill the stranger, either. Still, he – like many others who lived in their northern Minnesota area – had plenty of reason to do so.

I really love mysteries like this. Instead of making murder the sole means for the story, author William Kent Krueger adds richness to his plots in the form of a full life for his characters, especially Cork O’Connor.

We learn a lot about Krueger’s sleuth in this book; we’re given peeks at O’Connor’s childhood, his love life and his sense of morals and righteousness. We’re seeing him as he mellows and ages, which helps fans to understand more about Krueger’s character, and which lends to readers who are new to this series enough backstory to keep confusion at bay.

And that’s partly why I enjoy this series so much – that, and because Krueger knows how to keep the tension taut and pages turning. If you’re a mystery fan, you know what I mean, and you know you need to find this book, because Trickster’s Point plays out well.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to Terri in care of this publication.