Annal:1999 Anthony Award for Best First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Anthony Award in the year 1999. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Iron Lake: A Cork O'Connor Mystery
- 1999 Anthony-1st Novel winner
- 1999 Barry-1st Novel winner
- Score: 20.49
Part Irish, part Anishanaabe Indian, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota—population 3,752. Embittered by his “former” status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago’s South Side, he’s found that there’s not much left in life that can shock him. But when the town’s judge, Robert Parrant, is brutally murdered, and Eagle Scout Paul LeBeau is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption and scandal.
Asked by LeBeau’s panicked mother to find her son, Cork’s investigation grows icier, and more treacherous, than a frozen lake at midnight.
The coroner declares Judge Parrant’s death a suicide and quickly cremates the corpse. The current sheriff throws critical evidence in the incinerator. And a right-wing paramilitary group makes it violently clear that Cork would be better off letting dead dogs lie. To top it all off, Cork discovers a small-town secret with the big-time implications that hits…
