I feel bad for the next book I plan to read, because Ordinary Grace is a very hard act to follow. 'Windigo Island,' number fourteen in his Cork O’Connor series, was released in August 2014. 'Ordinary Grace,' his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year.

His last five novels were all New York Times bestsellers. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage-part Irish and part Ojibwe. Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is an attorney. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University-before being kicked out for radical activities. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God. Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. Murder.įrank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family- which includes his Methodist minister father his passionate, artistic mother Juilliard-bound older sister and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother- he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president.

The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”

A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it.

Ordinary grace book summary