Ordinary Grace
by William Kent Krueger
Book Overview
In the heat of 1961, thirteen-year-old Frank Drum watches his quiet Minnesota town fracture under a string of deaths. A minister’s son, he and his younger brother Jake stumble into secrets festering beneath Sunday manners. When their beloved sister, Ariel, turns up dead, suspicion spreads, faith buckles, and Frank must decide what truth to reveal and what love to shield. Chasing answers, he tests the line between mercy and justice and learns, at a terrible cost, what his father calls “the awful grace of God.”
This guide covers Ordinary Grace chapter by chapter, maps every character, and traces the novel’s core themes with clarity. You get crisp summaries, incisive analysis, and a curated set of quotes that illuminate its searching questions of faith, family, guilt, and redemption.