Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger Cork O’Conner #18

Krueger never fails to deliver a great story. This is a prequel to the Cork O’Connor series. In this story, Cork is only 13-years-old when he and two friends find a local Ojibwa, Big John, hanging from a tree. What looks like a suicide turns into a mystery that threatens to tear Cork’s family apart. His father is the Sherrif and has to deal with both the white man’s prejudice and the lack of faith by the native community to solve this complicated crime. And Cork and his friends plan on helping.

This was a great story of racism, jealousy, murder, and coverup. It is also about a boy becoming a man and how he sees the world around him.