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Ordinary Grace: A Novel

“. . . a superb literary novel.”

Mr. Kruger’s prose has been described by others as “pitch perfect”—a compliment hard to improve upon. He has an ear for just the right tone—whether in word, setting, sense, or emotion—that makes his novels ring true.

In his new book Ordinary Grace , he hits the mark with some observations about music itself. For example: “To this day there are pieces I cannot hear without imagining my sister’s fingers shaping the music every bit as magnificently as God shaped the wings of butterflies.”

And: “When my mother finally sang it was not just a hymn she offered, it was consummate comfort. She sang slowly and richly and delivered the heart of that great spiritual [‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’] as if she was delivering heaven itself and her face was beautiful and full of peace. I shut my eyes and her voice reached out to wipe away my tears and enfold my heart . . . And when she finished the sound of the breeze through the doorway was like the sigh of angels well pleased.”

Anyone who has heard music performed that well will know exactly whereof he speaks.

Meanwhile, anyone who is familiar with Mr. Kruger’s previous works will recognize that Ordinary Grace is not one of the Cork O’Connor crime novels. After a dozen of those, Mr. Kruger took a break to give us a standalone story, this one also set in Minnesota, but about a boy coming to manhood instead of a man hardened by brutal life.

Told through the voice of 13-year-old Frank Drum, minister’s son, in hindsight 40 years later, “It was a summer in which death, in visitation, assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.”

One would expect, therefore, the book to be grim.

But thanks to Mr. Kruger’s gift with words, the story is uplifting despite the darkness of its subject. It’s subtle, to be sure . . . event after event is sad or disturbing, and young Frank’s struggle to make sense of it all is at times heartbreaking. But somehow, without sentimentality or melodrama, a positive spirit emerges from the novel and leaves a warm afterglow. It proves to be a testament to ordinary grace.

This title is finally stated deep in the story, where the bereaved mother snarls at her man-of-God husband over the dinner table: “[C]an’t you, just this once, offer an ordinary grace?”

By that time, the reader has already witnessed numerous acts of grace among characters strained by tragedy. The whiplashed remark about saying grace over a meal comes as a jolt—it seems so superficial after all the serious demonstrations of the real thing the story has shown. The contrast must be intentional, based on the author’s skill in building tension, drama, and redemption. The best example of ordinary grace occurs in a sermon given by the father after burying a loved one.

Frank is one of the few characters (his father among them) who can perceive gray areas between black and white extremes. His youthful self experiencing that awful summer is tempered by the adult looking back, able to recognize a soul who needs “to feed in isolation on the meat of his bitterness” and to see a storm as “silver bolts of lightning forged on the anvil of the great thunderhead.”

He recognizes the people of his father’s parish as “sensible farm families who in most aspects of their public lives were as emotionally demonstrative as a mound of hay.” And he looks closely enough at a friend’s father to note he has “eyes whose blue was so intense it was as if he’d purchased pieces of the sky for their making.”

Along with such details of character and setting, Mr. Kruger loads the pages with iconic bits from the early 1960s. Their familiarity to readers who lived through that era helps immerse them in the story’s universal truths.

Underneath it all is a straightforward crime-solving plot that advances quietly for 300 pages. It holds Frank’s viewpoint through a steady chronology—no head-hopping or time jumping in this story—allowing the reader to know the character so well he comes off the page like a real person. Through his keen perception, we get to know everyone else, too.

Altogether, Ordinary Grace forms a superb literary novel. It lingers in the mind long after closing the cover, and beckons one to read again for the sheer pleasure of the experience.

Carolyn Haley is a broadly experienced writer and editor whose business, DocuMania, provides production support for editors, writers, and designers. She is also the author of three novels forming The Maverick Hearts Collection­- Wild Heart  (equestrian romance),  Cosmic Heart  (paranormal romantic suspense),  Killer Heart  (Vermont mystery)­—and one nonfiction volume,  Open Your Heart with Gardens .

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ORDINARY GRACE

by William Kent Krueger ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 2013

A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike.

A respected mystery writer turns his attention to the biggest mystery of all: God.

An award-winning author for his long-running Cork O’ Connor series  (Trickster’s Point , 2012, etc.), Krueger aims higher and hits harder with a stand-alone novel that shares much with his other work. The setting is still his native Minnesota, the tension with the region’s Indian population remains palpable and the novel begins with the discovery of a corpse, that of a young boy who was considered a little slow and whose body was found near the train trestle in the woods on the outskirts of town. Was it an accident or something even more sinister? Yet, that opening fatality is something of a red herring (and that initial mystery is never really resolved), as it serves as a prelude to a series of other deaths that shake the world of Frank Drum, the 13-year-old narrator (occasionally from the perspective of his memory of these events, four decades later), his stuttering younger brother and his parents, whose marriage may well not survive these tragedies. One of the novel’s pivotal mysteries concerns the gaps among what Frank experiences (as a participant and an eavesdropper), what he knows and what he thinks he knows. “In a small town, nothing is private,” he realizes. “Word spreads with the incomprehensibility of magic and the speed of plague.” Frank’s father, Nathan, is the town’s pastor, an aspiring lawyer until his military experience in World War II left him shaken and led him to his vocation. His spouse chafes at the role of minister’s wife and doesn’t share his faith, though “the awful grace of God,” as it manifests itself within the novel, would try the faith of the most devout believer. Yet, ultimately, the world of this novel is one of redemptive grace and mercy, as well as unidentified corpses and unexplainable tragedy.

Pub Date: March 26, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4516-4582-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | HISTORICAL MYSTERY | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

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BOOK REVIEW

by William Kent Krueger

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

More by Kathy Reichs

by Kathy Reichs

by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 1997

Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)

Pub Date: Dec. 2, 1997

ISBN: 0-446-52259-7

Page Count: 528

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

More by David Baldacci

by David Baldacci

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BookBrowse Reviews Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Summary  |  Excerpt  |  Reviews  |  Beyond the book  |  Read-Alikes  |  Genres & Themes  |  Author Bio

Ordinary Grace

by William Kent Krueger

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• Midwest, USA
• Minn. Wis. Iowa
• 1960s & '70s
• Coming of Age
• Dealing with Loss
• Religious or Spiritual Themes

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An irresistible narrator and a strong sense of time and place distinguish this murder mystery set in the Midwest of the 1960s

William Kent Krueger's latest novel is an atmospheric murder mystery set in a fictional small town in Minnesota. The tragedies that unfold during the summer of 1961 are described forty years after by the now 53-year-old Frank Drum. The eldest son of the town's Methodist minister, Frank was 13 at the time five people who lived in the area died under suspicious circumstances. Along with reporting on the fatalities and the investigations that surround them, Frank vividly describes what it was like to be a kid in middle America during that era, the colorful characters that populated the small town, and the lasting impact the deaths had on his family and others. I tend to avoid novels where children are the main characters, as I seldom find their thoughts, conversations or actions credible over the length of the book; in my view, they generally come across as too worldly or precocious. Krueger's choice of protagonist, though, is perfect. By having the older Frank tell the story of his younger self, he allows for the immature decisions of his character while keeping the maturity embedded in the narrative from seeming dubious or out of place. Truly Frank is one of the more irresistible narrators I've come across in a long time, and the author skillfully conveys a young boy's confusion and angst from the perspective of adulthood; this character sucked me into the story and didn't let go until the end. The highlight for me, though, was the marvelous sense of time and place Krueger created throughout the novel. As a child of the 60s and a Midwesterner, I could absolutely picture the summertime scenes the author painted. The entire novel is a perfect snapshot of an idyllic time in a prosperous and peaceful United States.

There was a parade that afternoon as there was every Fourth of July. The high school band marched in their braided uniforms and so did members of the VFW, many of them dressed in the military finery in which they'd served. The firemen drove their trucks, and the mayor and other city politicians rode in cars and waved, and there were flatbeds made into floats and hauled behind pickups cleaned and waxed for the day… and even kids joined in the parade, pulling their pets or small siblings behind them in Radio Flyer wagons decked out in crepe of red, white, and blue… [The park] was full of vendors selling cotton candy and hot dogs and bratwurst and mini-donuts and helium-filled balloons…There were games with prizes and there were polka bands and a temporary dance floor that had been laid out in the grass.

The author takes his time setting the scene and establishing his characters, and consequently the murder at the heart of the novel, which occurs halfway through the narrative, takes some patience to reach. Although red herrings abound, it is relatively easy to figure out "whodunit" long before the plot's denouement; the mystery is, however, satisfying enough to hold most readers' attention throughout. A strong religious thread runs through the novel, and one of the major themes of the book is the role faith can play when unthinkable tragedy occurs. Although the narrator's family is Protestant, the spiritual message is more inclusive than a Christian-themed book might be, leaning more toward belief in God as a provider of comfort than in Jesus Christ. The end result is that the ideas at the book's core will appeal to Christians and non-Christians alike. And, while the faith-based portions are central to the novel, they're not presented in a heavy-handed, "preachy" manner. As someone who doesn't consider herself a person of faith, I found these sections of the book to be touching rather than overbearing or lecturing. The author goes out of his way to portray New Bremen's characters as covering a broad spectrum of society. His milieu comprises the man of God, the local alcoholic, the emotionally wounded war vet, the angry Native American, the itinerate, the town bully, the cold rich person, the talented loner, persons with disabilities – and on and on, including just about every type of individual one can think of. Unfortunately, the end result of trying to be so comprehensive is that many of these characters are stereotypical and clichéd. It's not that they're poorly described or one-dimensional really; it's more that they're formulaic, with predictable actions that detract from the otherwise fine writing. The narrator is the exception to this, and the skill with which his character and a few others are drawn makes up for the unexceptional nature of the minor players in the drama. Overall Ordinary Grace is an entertaining mystery with some rather emotional content at its heart. In addition to an engaging plot, the book is thought-provoking and, at times, quite poignant. Those looking for a character-driven mystery with content that goes beyond the standard police procedural will find this one worth perusing, and book clubs in particular will find it provides many topics for discussion.

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About The Author

William Kent Krueger is the  New York Times  bestselling author of  The River We Remember , This Tender Land ,  Ordinary Grace  (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), and the original audio novella The Levee , as well as nineteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including  Lightning Strike  and  Fox Creek . He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.

Product Details

• Publisher: Atria Books (March 4, 2014)
• Length: 336 pages
• ISBN13: 9781451645859

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Raves and Reviews

“Pitch-perfect, wonderfully evocative. . . . In Frank Drum’s journey away from the shores of childhood—a journey from which he can never return—we recognize the heartbreaking price of adulthood and its ‘wisdoms.’ I loved this book.”

– Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Live by Night and The Given Day

“Krueger’s elegy for innocence is a deeply memorable tale.”

– Washington Post

“A respected mystery writer turns his attention to the biggest mystery of all: God. An award-winning author for his long-running Cork O’ Connor series, Krueger aims higher and hits harder with a standalone novel that shares much with his other work.... 'the awful grace of God,' as it manifests itself within the novel, would try the faith of the most devout believer. Yet, ultimately, the world of this novel is one of redemptive grace and mercy, as well as unidentified corpses and unexplainable tragedy. A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike.”

– Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“...elegiac, evocative.... a resonant tale of fury, guilt, and redemption.”

– Publishers Weekly

“Once in a blue moon a book drops down on your desk that demands to be read. You pick it up and read the first page, and then the second, and you are hooked. Such a book is Ordinary Grace . . . . This is a book that makes the reader feel better just by having been exposed to the delights of the story. It will stay with you for quite some time and you will always remember it with a smile.”

– Huffington Post

“One cannot read Ordinary Grace without feeling as if it is destined to be hailed as a classic work of literature. Ordinary Grace is one of those very rare books in which one regrets reaching its end, knowing that the experience of having read it for the first time will never be repeated. Krueger, who is incapable of writing badly, arguably has given us his masterpiece.”

– BookReporter.com

“My best read so far this year.”

– ReviewingtheEvidence.com

“A thoughtful literary mystery that is wholly compelling and will appeal to fans of Dennis Lehane and Tom Franklin. . . Don’t take the title too literally, for Krueger has produced something that is anything but ordinary.”

“Not often does a story feel at once fresh and familiar. But Ordinary Grace , a new novel from William Kent Krueger, is both, and it is affecting.”

– Denver Post

“ Ordinary Grace is engaging from the first page, a quiet novel that unfurls its sad story slowly, but eloquently, leaving its mark on your heart.”

– The Missourian

“There’s such a quiet beauty in his prose and such depth to his characters that I was completely captivated.”

– Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“A superb literary novel.”

– New York Journal of Books

“...the tone is much like To Kill a Mockingbird , with its combination of dread and nostalgia.”

– Detroit News

“Everything about this book, from language to ideas to Aeschylus’s epigram is beautiful and you’ll think about it long after you’re finished reading.”

– The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“I realized within pages this would be one of the best books I’ve read in recent years. The gathering threat and its consummation are satisfying and meaningful. This is an intelligent and compelling story told with great heart.... A perfect book club read, truly a book to love and read more than once. Absolutely recommended.”

– Historical Novel Society

“Besides being a terrific story that examines a powerful range of human experiences and emotions, it was the authentic voice of the teenage narrator, Frank Drum, that kept me reading late into the night. Though the tone is quiet, Krueger artfully layered the story with suspenseful examinations of family life, death, fury, spiritual fiber and redemption.”

– Beth Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“Sometimes a work of fiction just comes to you, sits in your soul, touches your life experiences and then is hard to remember as fiction. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kruger is such a novel."

– Capital Journal

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Catherine Gauldin's Reviews > Ordinary Grace

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Book Review - Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger

In ‘Ordinary grace’ by William Kent Krueger, Frank Drumm is 13 years old and lives in New Bremen, Minnesota where it’s summertime, a summer that begins with the death of a child on railroad tracks outside the town. More death is to follow, in a summer that will change lives in the small town forever. Frank is looking back at these events forty years later.

Stand by Me

One of the first things that came to mind when reading ‘ordinary grace’ was the Stephen King short story/film ‘Stand by me.’ It’s the death of the child on the first page of the book and then another incident that takes place a little while later. There are also similarities in the way that William Kent Krueger depicts small-town America, and I don’t make that comparison lightly as King is one of the best around at depicting places like this and the characters that inhabit it.

Another book that came to mind was ‘ To kill a mockingbird ' just in terms of the narrator Frank and the coming of age aspect of the story, and how his father was well respected in the town, this time as the local pastor. There is a race element to the book, and it made me think of another author, Louise Erdrich .

It’s a book with a strong sense of time and place and helps to put the reader right in the center of the story. The rural setting feels comfortable, with its rolling river and oppressive heat. The town's characters feel familiar too, believable enough without being cliched.

Like any small town, secrets are bubbling just below the surface. Some of the men, including Frank's father Nathan, and family friend Gus, are also harboring secrets from the war, and I kept wondering if these would be revealed.

One of the aspects of ‘ordinary grace’ I enjoyed was the dynamic between the family members. Frank's relationship with his brother Jake was particularly rewarding and felt believable. When some of the events begin to tug at the ties that bind the family, the reactions felt natural, especially Ruth Drumm.

It’s also about faith, with Nathan Drumm being a minister, and how people react to the events that take place. Forgiveness is also something that is explored, as it is the ‘awful’ Grace of god.

‘Ordinary grace’ does work well as a thriller, starting as a page-turner because you want to know who dies before it turns into a whodunnit. I did guess who had caused the final death, but it didn't matter - there was much more to the book than a build-up to a big reveal. That’s only one aspect of the story though, as it is also about faith, grief, and anger.

It was only after I finished the book that I learned William Kent Kreuger was also a crime writer - he has a mystery series with a protagonist called Cork O’Connor (now that’s an Irish name if ever I heard it) so I’ll likely check those books out at a later stage. This book certainly has more depth to it than the normal run-of-the-mill thriller but you can see the crime writing influence.

Ordinary Grace Summary

‘Ordinary Grace’ is a well-written book, atmospheric, and with rounded and believable characters. A lot of the plot points hinge on overheard conversations, which did irk me a little but I suppose it does happen and children are naturally inquisitive and often in places they shouldn’t be.

This felt like a classic, old-fashioned piece of storytelling from William Kent Krueger - elegant, familiar, and a bit of a page-turner. I found it an engaging read and would definitely recommend it.

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book review - Ordinary grace by William Kent Krueger

Published March 26th 2013 by Atria Books

Ordinary Grace Book Club Questions

How is faith explored in the book and how much of a part does it play in the characters lives?

By the end of the book, how have Frankie and Jake changed?

Warren Redstone says that the departed are never far from us. What do you think he means by that?

What do you think is meant by the term ‘ordinary grace’ and are there any other small graces present in the book?

What was Nathan saying in his sermon and how important was it to the central message of the book?

Did your idea of the killers identity change over the course of the book and what red herrings did William Kent Krueger include?

Talk about the deaths of Bobby Cole and Karl Brandt - what happened?

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Book review - underland: a deep time journey by robert macfarlane.

Ordinary Grace

William Kent Krueger | 4.39 | 81,516 ratings and reviews

Ranked #14 in Grace , Ranked #21 in Author Biography — see more rankings .

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Ordinary Grace from the world's leading experts.

Carl Bass CEO/Autodesk Winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for the best novel, William Kent Krueger's "Ordinary Grace" is the story of a young teenager, Frank Drum. Set in the summer of 1961, the novel recounts, from the perspective of Frank looking back 40 years later, how he was suddenly and rudely ushered into an adult world filled with a labyrinth of secrets, betrayal and murder. Krueger unfolds a classically poignant coming-of-age story whose themes are the high price of wisdom and the continuing grace of God. Bass has revealed in interviews that he is a man who reflects on spiritual matters and who recalls moments... (Source)

Rankings by Category

Ordinary Grace is ranked in the following categories:

• #61 in Adult Mystery
• #55 in Coming Of Age
• #87 in Grief
• #68 in New York Times Bestseller
• #69 in Redemption
• #81 in Sales
• #88 in Secrets

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Ordinary Grace

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Prologue-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-14

Chapters 15-18

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Chapters 23-27

Chapters 28-33

Chapters 34-37

Chapters 38-Epilogue

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Summary and Study Guide

The novel Ordinary Grace,  by William Kent Krueger, is set in the fictional Minnesota town of New Bremen, in the summer of 1961. The plotcenters on a quartet of deaths that take place in and around the town over the course of that summer. The book is narrated by middle child Frank Drum; its narrative present is 2001, when Frank is fifty-three years old and living in St. Paul, Minnesota, though the vast majority of the text treats the 1961 New Bremen summer as its narrative present; barring the book’s prologue and epilogue, it’s uncommon for Frank to return to or acknowledge the novel’s narrative present while recounting this moment in his past.

Frank’s father, Nathan, is a Methodist minister for three area churches in and around New Bremen. Frank’s mother, Ruth, leads choir for church services. After college, Nathan had planned to be a lawyer, but served in World War II and came back a changed and devout man. Ruth, despite her presence in the church, is not a true believer; she drinks, smokes, and questions God’s existence over the course of the book.

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Frank has an older sister, Ariel, and a younger brother, Jake. Ariel, a talented singer and pianist, is eighteen years old and has been accepted to Juilliard for the following fall semester. Her boyfriend, Karl Brandt , is the son of wealthy local beer magnates, and lives in the Heights, New Bremen’s wealthier area, while the Drums live in the Flats, which is middle- and working-class. Ariel also helps Emil Brandt , Karl’s uncle, with transcribing his memoir . Emil has returned to New Bremen blind and disfigured from a war injury; prior to serving, he was a successful music composer in Hollywood, “finding easy work in the music side of the film business…and [falling] in with a good-time Hollywood crowd” (63). Emil was also engaged to Frank’s mother, Ruth, before running out on her to seek fame in New York City, prior to his move to Hollywood. The tension between Nathan, Frank’s father, and Emil is palpable in multiple moments over the course of the book.

Jake Drum , Frank’s younger brother, has a stutter and is more devout than his cynical older brother. He is consistently the voice of conscience over the course of the book, often serving as the proverbial angel on Frank’s shoulder. Due to Jake’s speech disorder, he has a special relationship with Lise Brandt , Emil Brandt’s sister. Lise is deaf and lives with Emil in a converted farmhouse on the edge of town, where she spends the majority of her time gardening. Lise gets along well with Jake and is devoted to her brother, Emil, but largely untrusting of everyone else in New Bremen. Lise loathes to be touched, so much so that when she is, she flies into uncontrollable panic and rage.

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The first death of the summer is Bobby Cole , a developmentally-disabled, adolescent boy who is hit by a train and killed while sitting on a railroad trestle that spans a stretch of the Minnesota River. Some in New Bremen suspect foul play. After hearing a group of adults discuss Cole’s death, Frank and Jake head to the railroad tracks and trestle, where they come upon a Native American male, Warren Redstone , standing over the corpse of an adult male at the river’s edge. Redstone identifies the dead man as “The Skipper,” an itinerant who may have served in WWII. Frank and Jake eventually reveal this information to Gus , a war buddy of Frank’s father who lives in the basement of the Methodist church across the street from the Drum family home. Over the course of the novel, Gus often serves as a surrogate uncle for Frank and Jake, and is the adult the boys turn to in moments of uncertainty about how to handle moral and ethical quandaries.

On the Fourth of July, following an Independence Day parade and recital, Ariel, Frank’s older sister, goes missing. Her body is found by Frank, floating in the Minnesota River. An autopsy is performed, and it’s learned that Ariel was hit in the head with a blunt instrument then dumped in the river, to drown.A number of characters in the novel are identified as possible suspects. Leading the way are Ariel’s wealthy boyfriend, Karl Brandt, town tough Morris Engdahl , and non-Anglo semi-drifter Warren Redstone. After Engdahl’s alibi checks out, suspicion next falls on Redstone, who Frank and Jake encounter at the edge of the river, where Redstone keeps a lean-to, for fishing. The sadistic Officer Doyle arrives with other adults, and Redstone runs away; later, Frank finds the man hiding on the tracks of the same trestle where Bobby Cole was killed, and ultimately allows Redstone to flee, without informing the adults tracking him.

With Redstone out of the picture, suspicion next falls on Karl Brandt, Ariel’s boyfriend. The medical examiner’s other discovery, in regard to Ariel’s death, is that Ariel was five to six weeks pregnant; it’s assumed that the child is Karl’s, and that Karl has killed her so as not to impede his future collegiate career and be forced to marry someone from a lower social standing. Karl subsequently reveals to Frank’s father, Nathan, that he is gay, and shortly after dies after driving his red roadster into a cottonwood tree. Whether or not Karl does this on purpose is left ambiguous.

For Frank, attention again centers on Warren Redstone as Ariel’s killer, until a trip to Emil and Lise Brandt’s converted farmhouse, where Frank has an epiphany and realizes it would be easy for the sightless Emil to have snuck down to the river and bludgeoned Ariel. Upon questioning by Nathan Drum , Emil admits to fathering Ariel’s child but says he is not the killer. Frank cuts his hand while helping Lise Brandt in the garden and discovers items that belonged to his sister, Ariel, in Lise’s medicine cabinet, identifying Lise as the killer. Shortly after, Frank and his family leave New Bremen to move to St. Paul, Minnesota. The book concludes with an epilogue set in 2001, where Frank tells of the of the fates of the numerous, surviving characters that populated his New Bremen past.

Ordinary Grace functions as both a mystery and a coming-of-age story. In regard to the latter, the book is a bildungsroman for both Frank and the Midwestern postwar small town. With its religious overtones, it also seeks to illustrate both the power and limits of faith. The novel won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2014 andalso won the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award in 2013. William Kent Krueger is a crime and mystery writer; many of his works are set in Minnesota, including the  Cork O’Connor  series and the Iron Lake  Series.

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This tender land [book review].

November 7, 2019

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Genre/Categories: Historical Fiction, Coming of Age, Adventure, Great Depression

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

My Summary:

A journey to find safety, love, and home….

During the Great Depression , four orphans escape from the Lincoln School in Minnesota, an unhappy and perilous home/institution for Native American children where they had little food, harsh punishments, and suffered abuse. This quartet of miserable children consists of rebellious, free-spirited, and harmonica-playing Odie; his responsible and conscientious older brother Albert; their best friend and Native American, Mose; and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. The foursome makes their escape in a canoe down the Gilead River toward the Mississippi in search of a safe place to call home and people to love them. They become found family to each other and survive encounters with all types of people.

Amazon Rating:  4.7 Stars

My Thoughts:

Writing: An unforgettable and memorable story, Krueger’s writing in This Tender Land is lyrical and a joy to read! Some of the circumstances require a suspension of disbelief, but I was so wrapped up in the story and the writing that I was willing to go there with the author. Filled with vivid setting descriptions, colorful characters, and harrowing adventures, the story is a page-turner. I’m rounding this up to five stars because the author wrote an emotionally engaging story with characters I cared about. I couldn’t put it down until I knew the outcome for the four “vagabonds.”

Characters: These four children! :::::sigh::::: I cared about their well being, wanted to protect them, and cheered for them to find a forever home. They have a common goal to escape their dire circumstances at the Lincoln School, but they each have individual struggles, too. The story also features a cast of colorful and memorable (some unlikeable) supporting characters.

Themes: Thoughtful themes in This Tender Land include found family, survival, searching for safety and home, loyalty, friendship, helping others, homelessness, generosity, bravery, faith, reconciliation, and healing.

Because of references to Giliad, I kept thinking of the refrain to the song: “ There is a Balm in Gilead “ Refrain: There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sinsick soul.

Recommended: This Tender Land is recommended for readers who appreciate a well-written, poignant, and lyrical story by a master storyteller, for fans of William Kent Krueger ( Ordinary Grace ), for those who love historical fiction and adventure stories, and definitely for book clubs.

***Content Warning: Child abuse and neglect (if this were a movie, I would rate it PG-13)

My Rating:  4.5 Stars (rounded to 5 on Goodreads)

This Tender Land Information  (affiliate link)

Meet the Author, William Kent Krueger

Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. 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. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. 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 last five novels were all New York Times bestsellers.

“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. “Manitou Canyon,” number fifteen in his Cork O’Connor series, was released in September 2016. Visit his website at http://www.williamkentkrueger.com .

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32 comments.

Glad to read this review– I read his book, Ordinary Grace las spring. Also so many heartfelt characters. Putting it on my list. Thanks again Carol!! And just finished The Dearly Beloved, every bit as great as you promised!! Going to recommend it for our Lit group’s next book list. And the Bee Keeper of Aleppo. Really like that as well, but wished we could have gone on with their story to see where/how they settled. Thanks for all your great recommendations– I can’t tell you how many people I have sent the link to your blog!! xox

Thanks for taking time to comment and being my biggest cheerleader Rhonda! I appreciate your support so very much! 😍 I’m happy to hear you loved Dearly Beloved! Great discussion topics! I’m still on a waiting list for Bee Keeper. Hoping to get it before the year’s end.

Fantastic review Carol!

Thank you Nicki!😍👍

I look forward to reading this and Ordinary Grace soon. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I hope you enjoy them! He’s a masterful writer and story teller! 😍👍 Thanks for commenting!🙌

I loved this book too! And I’m hoping to read Ordinary Grace soon.

I have Ordinary Grace on my TBR mountain too Jaymi! Thanks for commenting! 👍😍

I’m listening to this later in the month. Krueger is one of my most favorite writers. Lovely review, Carol💜

Thanks Jonetta! I hope you enjoy this unputdownable story! 😍👍

Great post 😊

Thanks for reading and commenting! 👍😍

[…] Ladies – The Fountains of Silence & This Tender Land Linda’s Book Bag – The Guardian of Lies & The Perseverance Over The Rainbow Book […]

Wonderful review Carol. I’ve read and reviewed this author’s “Ordinary Grace” and I’m really looking forward to reading this one.

I’ve had Ordinarily Grace on my TBR for a while! Tender Land is unputdownable! Enjoy! 👍😍

[…] Genre: Historical Fiction, Native American, Coming of Age. This is receiving excellent reviews and is my most anticipated fall read. ***UPDATE: 5 Stars. Compelling, thought provoking, unique. Full review here. […]

[…] 5 Stars. Well written (literary fiction quality), poignant, heartbreaking, and memorable. My full review here. […]

[…] E-Book Embargo and the ALA The Fountains of Silence Review Fiction/Nonfiction Book Pairings This Tender Land Review The Dutch House Review Nonfiction Books and Racial Injustice Ribbons of Scarlet Review The […]

[…] This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger […]

[…] 8. This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger […]

[…] Related: This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger […]

[…] Compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking literary fiction. (You may have read Krueger’s This Tender Land this year.) My review of Ordinary Grace […]

[…] Cork O’Connor mystery series (I have not read any books in this series). In 2020 I read This Tender Land. After I read it, many readers commented and asked whether I had read Ordinary Grace. I had not, so […]

Thanks for the link, Carol. I think I would enjoy this book.

It’s an amazing story…. enjoy!

[…] character is revisited and has a thoroughly described ending. I recall that William Kent Kruegar in This Tender Land carefully follows through with what happens to the four children. Some readers prefer that an […]

[…] In 2020, I decided to systematically revisit my older review posts and update them. On Thursdays, I’ll be re-sharing a few of these great reads. Today, I’m re-sharing a compelling historical fiction story from a popular author, This Tender Land by William Kent Kreuger […]

Glad you liked this one!!

[…] This Tender Land by Willian Kent Kreuger […]

[…] you read Ordinary Grace or is it on your TBR?Have you read This Tender Land or the Cork O’Connor Mystery Series also by […]

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Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

• Release Date: March 26th 2013
• Genre: Historical Fiction , Literary Fiction , Mystery/Thriller
• Author: William Kent Krueger
• Publisher: Atria , Simon and Schuster

“A pitch-perfect, wonderfully evocative examination of violent loss. In Frank Drum’s journey away from the shores of childhood—a journey from which he can never return—we recognize the heartbreaking price of adulthood and it’s ‘wisdoms.’ I loved this book.” – ( Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Live by Night and The Given Day )

“A respected mystery writer turns his attention to the biggest mystery of all: God. An award-winning author for his long-running Cork O’ Connor series, Krueger aims higher and hits harder with a standalone novel that shares much with his other work…. ‘the awful grace of God,’ as it manifests itself within the novel, would try the faith of the most devout believer. Yet, ultimately, the world of this novel is one of redemptive grace and mercy, as well as unidentified corpses and unexplainable tragedy. A novel that transforms narrator and reader alike.” – (Kirkus Reviews )

“…elegiac, evocative…. a resonant tale of fury, guilt, and redemption.” – ( Publishers Weekly )

“Once in a blue moon a book drops down on your desk that demands to be read. You pick it up and read the first page, and then the second, and you are hooked. Such a book is Ordinary Grace …This is a book that makes the reader feel better just by having been exposed to the delights of the story. It will stay with you for quite some time and you will always remember it with a smile.” – ( Huffington Post )

“There was a playwright, Son, a Greek by the name of Aeschylus. He wrote that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

The father was a pillar of respectfulness, a preacher, the mother sung in the choir and had a beauty and grace. The two young brothers of the family were inseparable and loved, they were brave and adventurous, respectful to their kin and full of wanting answers to the problems that hit this great family and their small town. There will be some grace but the reader will hope that there will be a peace and a closure for the family. Forgiveness will be not just be part of Sunday rhetoric, but will be a real test, for this family will have to try to consider possessing it through their hardest of times. The narrative is from one boy Frank his passage of time, coming-of-age, his thoughts, emotions, and visions on the world around him empathic and resoundingly felt by the reader. This has a wonderful cast of memorable characters and has some great feel good moments and some shocking moments. The story was written win a great grace and pace and really done well in captivating and hooking the reader to a expectant resolve to the dilemma that hits this family from a small town. This story will learn in the corners of your mind for some time. Those that liked the story A Land More Kind Than Home By Wiley Cash would love this treat of a story A poignant family tale, in this passage of time, humanity, characters take the stage with love, respect, loss, belief, forgiveness and redemption running its course, gracefully delivered.

“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, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota. His name was Bobby Cole. He was a sweet-looking kid and by that I mean he had eyes that seemed full of dreaming and he wore a half smile as if he was just about to understand something you’d spent an hour trying to explain. I should have known him better, been a better friend. He lived not far from my house and we were the same age. But he was two years behind me in school and might have been held back even more except for the kindness of certain teachers. He was a small kid, a simple child, no match at all for the diesel-fed drive of a Union Pacific locomotive.” “An hour later she came downstairs wearing a black dress. She had on a black hat with a black veil and black pumps. She smelled of bath powder. Jake and I were dressed for the service. We had the television on and were watching a rerun of The Restless Gun. My mother was beautiful. Even we her thoughtless sons knew that. Folks were always saying she could have been a movie star. Pretty as Rita Hayworth they said.” “When my mother finally sang it was not just a hymn she offered, it was consummate comfort. She sang slowly and richly and delivered the heart of that great spiritual as if she was delivering heaven itself and her face was beautiful and full of peace. I shut my eyes and her voice reached out to wipe away my tears and enfold my heart and assure me absolutely that Bobby Cole was being carried home. It made me almost happy for him, a sweet boy who didn’t have to worry anymore about understanding a world that would always be more incomprehensible to him than not. “ “And I thought about telling them how I’d figured Bobby was hopeless but I was wrong and Gus was right. Bobby had a gift and the gift was his simplicity. The world for Bobby Cole was a place he accepted without needing to understand it. Me, I was growing up scrambling for meaning and I was full of confusion and fear.” “Ariel was my parents’ golden child. She had a quick mind and the gift of easy charm and her fingers possessed magic on the keyboard and we knew, all of us who loved her, that she was destined for greatness. She was my mother’s favorite and may have been my father’s too though I was less certain of his sentiments. He was careful in how he spoke of his children, but my mother with passionate and dramatic abandon declared Ariel the joy of her heart. What she did not say but all of us knew was that Ariel was the hope for the consummation of my mother’s own unfulfilled longings. It would have been easy to hate Ariel. But Jake and I adored her. She was our confidante. Our co-conspirator. Our defender. She tracked our small successes better than our distracted parents and was lavish in her praise. In the simple way of the wild daisies that grew in the grass of the pasture behind our home she offered the beauty of herself without pretension.” “The man who told us to eat grass, he was killed, and our warriors stuffed grass into his mouth. It was a hopeless thing we tried to do, because the whites, they had soldiers and guns and money and newspapers that repeated all the lies. In the end, our people lost everything and were sent away from here. Thirty-eight of our warriors were hung in one day, and the whites who watched it cheered.”

No ORDINARY GRACE: The Stunning New Novel From NYT Bestseller William Kent Krueger

Proud author of GOLDEN BOY and FLICK, Books Editor at Phoenix Magazine

How often is it that you find a book you really love? I personally have eclectic tastes, and enjoy variety in my literary diet. I read a lot of books I very much enjoy, but it's rare that I find one so absorbing, so beautifully written, that speaks to my personal predilections, philosophical occupations, and preference in style.

That's why I SO much enjoyed reading Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. My own editor at Atria Books was nice enough to give me an advanced reading copy of this book and I was absolutely entranced by it. It's the kind of book where you fight between wanting to race through it to the finish and attempting to make it last. Luckily it's paced so well and is so satisfying a meal for the mind, I was able to put it down every few chapters and happily mull over what has gone before, feeling sated.

It's the kind of introspective, intelligent novel where there are layers of meaning behind every word, and personal history and context wrapped in the motives of every character. It also has a strong plot, for those who like Kent Krueger for his thrillers. I think what I like best about the novel, however, is how evocative of a certain atmosphere it is. It's the atmosphere of innocence infringing on experience, of the joyous, almost uncaring freedom of late childhood grating against the terrible responsibilities and knowledge of adulthood, and of rural 60s' America, a country where churchgoers were moderate, people entered into marriage, love and sex in naivety, children swam in quarries and played by railroad tracks and the summers were hot and dusty.

At the end, I found myself disappointed that it was over - which must be a good thing! I won't give anything away but I really wanted to see more of certain characters. I suppose, however, a novel has to end somewhere. Though if Kent Krueger wrote a sequel to this I would definitely read it. I was especially intrigued by the character of the mother, and found myself wanting to know more about her and her viewpoint throughout the novel.

A really great book with a wonderful, pitch perfect voice. I very much recommend it.

Suggested Soundtrack: Tom Waits' Cold, Cold Ground.

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#BookReview Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger @WmKentKrueger

From  New York Times  bestselling author William Kent Krueger comes a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were at the ready at Halderson’s Drug Store soda counter, and  Hot Stuff  comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a summer in which death assumed many forms.

When tragedy unexpectedly comes to call on his family, which includes his Methodist minister father, his passionate, artistic mother, Juilliard-bound older sister, and wise-beyond-his years kid brother, Frank finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal.

On the surface,  Ordinary Grace  is the story of the murder of a beautiful young woman, a beloved daughter and sister. At heart, it’s the story of what that tragedy does to a boy, his family, and ultimately the fabric of the small town in which he lives. Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, it is a 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. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

This is a really great story about the challenges we face in life and the ways in which we handle them.

It is a coming-of-age story, with a side of mystery, that touches on the power of perspective, the strength of familial relationships, friendship, loss, grief, forgiveness and faith.

It is exquisitely written. The prose is beautiful. The setting is vividly described. And the characters are well-developed and complex.

It is a subtle story that flows effortlessly, leaves an impression, and makes an impact.

I highly recommend it. It is definitely worth a read.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy of this story from your favourite retailer or from the following Amazon links.

Amazon UK ,  Amazon US ,  Amazon Canada

For more information on William Kent Krueger, visit his website at:   williamkentkrueger.com

or follow him on Twitter at: @ WmKentKrueger

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