Ordinary Grace
By William Kent KruegerISBN: 1-978-4516-4582-8
A March 2013 Atria release in
HC and as an e-book.
To maintain complete transparency, Mr. Krueger and I are
long-time friends, we frequently travel together as the Minnesota Crime Wave,
and I received a pre-release copy of this book at no cost to
me.
“Ordinary Grace” is a standalone novel, a project the
author has long desired to write. The book is considerably different from his
multiple-award-winning Cork O’Connor series. It benefits from everything the
author has learned over the years writing that series. It is directly and
powerfully written, wasting no words, yet always moving the characters and the
story ahead at appropriate pace, depending on the actions of the characters and
the plot.
Set in a small community in southern Minnesota in 1961,
this is how the story begins: “All the dying that summer began with the death of
a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks
outside New Bremen, Minnesota.” The narrator is an adult white male, son of the
Methodist minister in town. Frank is recalling the momentous events of that
bygone summer when he was but thirteen years old, a teen-ager on the cusp of
young maturity. The death of that child sets in motion events and revelations of
suppressed attitudes that alter the lives and futures of many people in the
town. Some of the people affected are important and wealthy, others, as plain
and ordinary as one could imagine. Yet everyone in the novel is required to come
to terms to greater or lesser degree, with who they are and how they must relate
to family, friends, members of their faith, and how they function in the wider
yet limited community. What Frank learns that summer, and equally importantly,
how he sees and interprets the evil and the grace of that time, will affect him
for his entire life. It’s an important lesson.
Krueger’s writing, as always, is smooth and strong and
the logic of the plot is easy to follow. While the story has many layers, there
are no convoluted or tricky passages readers will have to struggle to interpret.
That’s part of the book’s charm and its strength.
The novel explores faith, mysticism, and rationality in
thoughtful, even-handed and open ways that lend itself to recollection and
continuing reflection, regardless of readers’ experiences in those areas of
life. The characters, and there are many, are carefully and consistently
well-drawn. This is a novel of discovery and exploration, for the author and for
readers. Well done.
Carl Brookins Reunion, Red Sky, Case of the Great Train Robbery www.carlbrookins.com carlbrookins@comcast.net
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