Most people reading “The River We Remember” will not really remember the year 1958. And even fewer will be able to relate to small-town Minnesota as William Kent Krueger depicts it. In the rural town of Jewel, many of the inhabitants are either farmers or those in town who support farmers by providing food at the local diner or teaching their children at the local school. Sheriff Brody Dern protects people, but his job is usually dealing with drunks. That changes on Memorial Day when the body of local wealthy farmer Jimmy Quinn is found in the river.

There are several important characters in this story, and Krueger masterfully depicts them with all their frailties and, sometimes, their strengths. Brody Dern, like many of the veterans who live in Jewel, still struggles with what he saw and did and what he was forced to endure during the war. Connie Graff, the previous sheriff, who is also an important character, has similarly struggled with his experiences from a previous war. Many others also are dealing with their tortured histories.

The river referenced in the title is practically another character. References to the river, its history and its personal significance to the characters in the story, become a unifying theme that runs through the novel much like the Alabaster River runs through the town of Jewel and Black Earth County. It’s a river, and as is true of most rivers in the country, the site has been the scene of much violence. From the settlers who slaughtered the Native Americans to the Native Americans who killed the settlers along its banks, and subsequent deaths attributable to suicide or murder, much violence has happened along or in the Alabaster River, which often looks ghostly white under a full moon.

Jimmy Quinn’s body was mutilated not only by the shotgun blast that felled him but by the voracious catfish that inhabit the river. By the time his bloated body was found on the edge of the river, his face looked like a horrendous Halloween mask. His death is just the first act of violence in this tale of a hot, turbulent summer during which emotions run high and animosities run wild.

Noah Bluestone, a local of Sioux descent, worked for Quinn but had been fired in the days before Quinn’s death. Bluestone wasn’t the only one who might have wanted Quinn dead as most of the county hated him, including his children from both his first and second marriages. But Bluestone, being as the locals referred to him, “a savage Indian,” was the easiest to pin the murder on. Bluestone was in the military for twenty years before he returned to Black Earth County to farm his father’s small plot of land. He brought with him Kyoko, whom he met and married in Japan. Bluestone suffered in the military not only because of the color of his skin, but also because he married one of the “enemy,” and when he returned to Minnesota, the reception wasn’t much better.

We see how Sheriff Dern’s well-meaning actions upon finding the supposed location where Quinn was shot end up backfiring, and Krueger eventually shares Dern’s reasoning. No one is mourning the passing of Quinn, but many of the residents of Black Earth County are intent on making Bluestone pay for the death, even though Dern is not sure that Bluestone committed the crime. Mysteriously, Bluestone will say nothing in his defense, nor will Kyoko share the events of that night.

This is the kind of book that really seems to have it all: murder, small-town animosities, prejudice, loneliness, bullies, violence, broken people and broken families, rape, and even a bit of romance. By following the investigation into Quinn’s well-deserved death, we get to know those who are involved, and we learn their often sordid pasts. The characters become real in Krueger’s deft hands, and we care about what happens to them. Most of them, anyway.

But the questions Krueger forces us to consider are universal ones. Are we the sum of our actions, especially the painful, shameful ones? Is everyone deserving of forgiveness? Is it all right to wipe away evidence in a killing if the victim was a completely despicable person who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and deserved it? How hard is it for people to forgive themselves for past actions they are ashamed of or for which they are truly regretful?

I’m definitely thinking of this book as one for a future book club I will be facilitating, although my only hesitation is that the depth and breadth of issues raised in “The River We Remember” are such that a one-hour discussion might not suffice. I could probably spend almost that long just discussing the violence against dogs raised in the book (but be assured that the dog in the story does not die!), and what that violence says about both those who perpetrated it and those who decry it.

While you are reading this book, if you are of a certain age (and I am), you will think about growing up in a small town with a single movie theater, a diner, and long dirt roads. If you are not of a certain age, you will vicariously experience those turbulent times when tempers were high and passions and prejudice ran deep in many, many corners of America. And no matter your age, you will love the twist when the perpetrator of the crime is finally revealed.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.