Lightning Strike (Cork O’Connor, #0)

"[A] powerful prequel to his Cork O'Connor series..." -- jacket. Published after #17, Desolation Mountain, but thematically takes place before #1, Iron Lake.

Aurora is a town nestled in the forest along Minnesota's Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve year old Cork O'Connor. But when he stumbles upon the body of a man he revered, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything. Cork's father is Aurora's sheriff, and it is his job to confirm that the man's death was a suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father's official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers of his own. Together, father and son must choose between what their heads tell them is true, and what their hearts know is right.