Ordinary Grace

Title: Ordinary Grace

Author: William Kent Krueger

Publisher: Atria

Date of publication: 2014

Number of pages: 336

Genre: historical fiction, realistic fiction

Audience age range: Adult

A quick personal review:

It was so easy to be pulled into the storyline of this book due to the main character, Frank Drum, who is the one child in his family that seems to not always follow the rules and risks questioning the world.  Frank is the son of a minister and has a brother named Jake and an older sister named Ariel.  Set in 1961, Ariel’s sneaking out of the house to see her boyfriend during the night is scandalous as are the drinking binges of Gus, the friend of Frank’s dad, and of course the murder of a man by the railroad tracks, an unidentified man who must have been killed by the native American Warren Redstone who has a shady past.  Simply a tragedy, the book begins with the death of Bobby Cole, a young man killed on the railroad tracks.  Odd, his glasses are found among Warren Redstone’s belongings…

The mystery of the book and the discovery of the killer is mild compared to the suspense of what occurs to Ariel.  She is a piano prodigy who has studied with Emil Brandt, a blind incredibly talented pianist and composer who once was engaged to Ariel’s mother.  As if that tangled connection was not enough, Ariel has decided not to pursue her collegiate dream to stay near her boyfriend Karl Brandt, a member of the wealthiest family in town and nephew of Emil who lives with his sister Lise, a deaf mute.  Lise cannot stand to be touched, but she loves to garden and has befriended Jake Drum.  He seems able to relate to her well.  All of these people are tangled into an engaging storyline, especially when poor Ariel drowns and it is revealed that she was pregnant.  Discovering this mystery of the child’s parentage and what really happened to Ariel keeps a reader guessing until the end of the novel.

Although this novel is steeped in mystery, it is also about family relationships, jealousy, the rich vs. the poor, and overcoming tragedy.

Unique qualities:

The writing is beautiful.  From the very first page, the prose flows.  Krueger builds pictures in narration and his sentences are smoothly meandering as he builds character and plot.

Red flags:

This story is sad.  Death comes in many forms in this novel, but moreso, the loss of trust and faith can be daunting to a reader who is unprepared for it.

Recommendations:

I do recommend this book despite its sadness.  It is an interesting study in human behavior and the beauty of the prose is wonderful to experience.  I have been told that Krueger writes other books in a series of mysteries, and I look forward to reading them!