Ordinary Grace takes place in 1961, a momentous summer in the life of thirteen-year-old Frank Drum, his family, and his community of New Bremen, Minnesota. Frank narrates the story through the filter of the forty years that have passed since the events, including four deaths, occurred. The characters, the place, the time all come alive in Willian Kent Krueger’s masterful prose. The story is both uplifting and dark, part redemption tale, part crime drama. Outstanding. ( )

Less a mystery and more an exploration of grace and human frailty. ( )

I first heard of William Kent Krueger within days of moving to Minnesota this past summer. He seemed to be a local bestseller, greatly respected. A local book club is reading Ordinary Grace; I jumped at the chance to give Krueger a try. All I can is... wow. This man can write. This novel is like a darker, Minnesota-flavored To Kill a Mockingbird, a coming-of-age set in a turbulent 1961. The prose is art. I don't normally read books in this vein, but it hooked me and I had to read through in about a day. Tragedy piles upon tragedy. The only negative I can cite is that I predicted the guilty parties of certain things much earlier on, but the way things played out still came as a surprise. ( )

I gave the audio a full hour, hoping that I'd reach that magical point where you just fall into the story and thoughts about how much longer it was going to go on stop intruding on your consciousness, but it never did. So I finally gave up and moved on to the next book.

Audiobook, picked up on a whim at an Audible $5 sale. Rich Orlow's narration was okay. ( )

Well written complicated, yet sad, story. ( )