William Kent Krueger
Ordinary Grace is a stand-alone novel by William Kent Krueger that earned him the Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2013, a prize he received in 2014.
Krueger was born on November 16, 1950, in Torrington, and is a citizen of the United States. He was educated at Stanford University and has worked as both a journalist and a novelist, writing in American English. His work spans crime fiction as well as stand-alone novels, and he writes under the Library of Congress Authorized Heading "Krueger, William Kent."
A significant part of his output centers on a series featuring a character named Cork O'Connor, set mainly in Minnesota. That series brought him early recognition from the Anthony Awards: he received the Anthony Award for Best First Novel and then won back-to-back Anthony Awards for Best Novel in 2005 and 2006. The Edgar Award for Ordinary Grace added to that record, and the novel stands as one of his most decorated works.
His novel This Tender Land appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for nearly six months in 2019, making it one of his most commercially visible titles.
Quotes by William Kent Krueger
She kept secrets, her own and those told to her. I guess you’d call it integrity.
Conscience was a devil that plagued the individual. Collectively, a people squashed it as easily as stepping on a daisy.
When I pray, Odie, I never pray for perfection. I pray for forgiveness, because it’s the one prayer I know will always be answered.
The tale I’m going to tell is of a summer long ago. Of killing and kidnapping and children pursued by demons of a thousand names. There will be courage in this story and cowardice. There will be love and betrayal. And, of course, there will be hope. In the end, isn’t that what every good story is about?
Which turned out to be a thing I couldn’t do. Not because imagination failed me, but because I was afraid to dream in that way. In my whole life, I could recall no dream ever coming true.
It’s hard to say good-bye and almost impossible to accomplish this alone and ritual is the railing we hold to, all of us together, that keeps us upright and connected until the worst is past.
He knew there was no magic to wipe clean the slate of memory. You just learned how to move on.
But somewhere in the vault of our hearts, in a place our brains can’t or won’t touch, the worst is stored, and the only sure key to it is in our dreams.
