Ordinary Grace

By: William Kent Krueger

Published by Simon and Schuster, 2014-03-04

<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES </i>BESTSELLER<br> WINNER OF THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL<br> WINNER OF THE 2014 DILYS AWARD<br> A <i>SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL </i>BEST BOOK OF 2013</b><br> <br><b>From <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author William Kent Krueger, a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.</b><br><br><i>“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.” </i><br><br>New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. 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. 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 grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. <br><br>Frank 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. <br><br>Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, <i>Ordinary Grace</i> 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. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.