Excerpt from Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Not up to me," Cork said.

"I didn't know him," Larson said. "But he sure left a mark on this town."

"Tell you what, Ed. Why don't you go on back to the office? I'd like to spend a few minutes here alone."

"Sure thing, Sheriff." Larson gave him a little salute and crossed the street.

As Cork stared up at the frozen clock face, a cool breeze passed over him, which felt to him like the visitation of his father's spirit. His father would have scowled and said something like "That's your heart talking. If you're going to be a good lawman, you need to listen to your head."

It was a piece of advice in keeping with the kind of man his father had been. Or at least as Cork remembered him. In Cork's memories, Liam O'Connor had been a lion, powerfully built, with hands like huge paws and a thick mane of red-gold hair. Although not typically given to displays of emotion, when the situation demanded, he was a ferocious, towering figure. Yet these days, whenever he studied the family photographs of his father, Cork saw a man much smaller than he remembered and with a much gentler face, different from the father Cork remembered, a stranger in so many ways.

There was a bench on the sidewalk, and he sat and allowed himself the indulgence of reverie. Beneath a blue sky and a butter yellow sun, with a cool breeze on his face, the weight of a new badge on his chest, and the responsibilities that came with it resting on his shoulders, he considered a summer long ago when he'd first begun to try to unravel the mystery that had been his father.

Excerpted from Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger. Copyright © 2021 by William Kent Krueger. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.