Ordinary Grace by William Kent KruegerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Beautifully thought out and well written. But the Edgar Award?
Ordinary Grace, although mysterious, is not (by my standards) a mystery. Nor is it a thriller. Nor is there much compelling action. The reader sees through the plot immediately and there is no guesswork to it.
What the book is, is a semi-spiritual coming of age saga. Death is the tool that forces the growth changes, both in the youthful and the war-torn, the delusioned and the disappointed. It's a perfect Churches-Book-Club offering, a prying into cause and effect with murder as the catalyst but without too much violence. I loved some of the Methodist realism and the Kennedy Era meal plans.
I suppose I could characterize Krueger's novel as a sad but thoughtful tragedy of its time; heartbreaking and provocative, but without enough vitality or punch to keep the reader up all night, reading.
You will enjoy Ordinary Grace in the way it portrays the two children and their relationships with the adults and recounts "modern" life in 1961 small-town America. Then you will shake your head at the Edgar Award Committee and try reading the second-place winner.
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