Cork O’Connor returns for “hold-your-breath suspense” ( Booklist , starred review) in the thirteenth novel in the New York Times bestselling mystery series. During a blizzard one bitter winter night, just days before Christmas, the car belonging to the wife of a retired local judge is discovered abandoned on a rural county road in Tamarack County. After days of fruitless searching, there is little hope that she’ll be found alive, if she’s found at all. Cork O’Connor, the ex-sheriff of Tamarack County, notices small things about the woman’s disappearance that disturb him. When the beloved pet dog of a friend is brutally killed and beheaded, he begins to see a startling pattern in these and other recent dark occurrences in the area. And after his own son is brutally attacked and nearly killed, Cork understands that someone is spinning a deadly web in Tamarack County. At its center is a murder more than twenty years old, for which an innocent man may have been convicted. Cork remembers the case only too well. He was the deputy in charge of the investigation that sent the man to prison. With the darkest days of the year at hand, the storms of winter continue to isolate Tamarack County. Somewhere behind the blind of all that darkness and drifting snow, a vengeful force is at work. And Cork has only hours to stop it before his family and friends pay the ultimate price for the sins of others. “...a winter’s tale that will both break and warm the reader’s heart.... Krueger’s evident empathy for the Ojibwe and their traditions and values blends seamlessly with horrific violence played out against O’Connor’s struggles to heal his family’s wounds—and his own.” ― Publishers Weekly (starred review) “...hold-your-breath suspense, heightened by the isolating blizzards of a Minnesota winter and the eerie presence of a stalker.... Because Krueger works in the history of his characters’ relationships in a clear and elegant way, this exceptionally scary suspense story will prove riveting for both newcomers to the series and readers who have followed Cork as he and his family have aged and grown.” ― Booklist (starred review) “Krueger is in fine form in this superb, highly atmospheric tale, deftly capturing a wide range of emotions and conflicts between assorted characters. . .you’re in for a real treat.” ― Lansing Journal (Michigan) 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. Tamarack County CHAPTER 1 Like many men and women who’ve worn a badge for a good part of their lives, Corcoran Liam O’Connor was cursed. Twice cursed, in reality. Cursed with memory and cursed with imagination. In his early years, Cork had worked for the Chicago PD, the South Side. Then he’d spent a couple of decades in the khaki uniform of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department, first as a deputy and finally as sheriff. He’d seen the aftermath of head-on collisions, of carelessness or drunkenness around farm or lumbering equipment, of bar fights with broken bottles and long-bladed knives, of suicide and murder in every manner. And so the first curse: he remembered much, and much of his memory was colored in blood. The second curse came mostly from the first. Whenever he heard about a violent incident, he inevitably imagined the details. And so, when he finally understood the truth of what happened to Evelyn Carter, he couldn’t keep himself from envisioning how her final moments must have gone. This is what, in his mind’s eye, he saw: It was seven o’clock in the evening, ten days before Christmas. The streets of Aurora, Minnesota, were little valleys between walls of plowed snow. It was snowing again, lightly at that moment, a soft covering that promised to give a clean face to everything. The shops were lit with holiday lights and Christmas trees and Santa figures and angels. There were people on the sidewalks, carrying bags and bundles, gifts for under the trees. They knew one another, most of them, and their greetings were sincere good wishes for the season. Evelyn Carter was among them. She was small, not quite seventy. All her life she’d been a good-looking woman and had taken good care of herself, so she was attractive still. She wore an expensive coat trimmed with fox fur, purchased when she’d visited her daughter in New York City in October. On her head was a warm gray bucket hat made of rabbit’s fur. In her left hand, she gripped a shopping bag filled with little gifts, stocking stuffers. A cell phone was cradled in the gloved palm of her right hand, and she stood on the sidewalk, looking at a photo of her grandson dressed as a sheph