William Kent Krueger Popular Books

William Kent Krueger Biography & Facts

William Kent Krueger (born November 16, 1950) is an American novelist and crime writer, best known for his series of novels featuring Cork O'Connor, which are set mainly in Minnesota. In 2005 and 2006, he won back-to-back Anthony Awards for best novel. In 2014, his stand-alone book Ordinary Grace won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2013. In 2019, This Tender Land was on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly six months. Biographical details Krueger has said that he wanted to be a writer from the third grade when his story "The Walking Dictionary" was praised by his teacher and parents.He attended Stanford University, but his academic path was cut short when he came into conflict with the university's administration during student protests of spring 1970. Throughout his early life, he supported himself by logging timber, digging ditches, working in construction, and being published as a freelance journalist; he never stopped writing.He wrote short stories and sketches for many years, but it was not until the age of 40 that he finished the manuscript of his first novel, Iron Lake. It won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award.Krueger is married and has two children. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Writing influences Krueger has said his favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. He grew up reading Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James T. Farrell. Most influential among these was Hemingway. In an interview for Shots magazine, Krueger described his admiration for Hemingway's prose: His prose is clean, his word choice perfect, his cadence precise and powerful. He wastes nothing. In Hemingway, what's not said is often the whole point of a story. I like that idea, leaving the heart off the page so that the words, the prose itself, is the first thing to pierce you. Then the meaning comes. As a mystery genre writer, Krueger credits Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke as his strongest influences. Writing process Krueger prefers to write early in the morning. He began writing in his 30s and had to make time for writing early in the morning before going to work at the University of Minnesota. Rising at 5:30 am, he would go to the nearby St. Clair Broiler, where he would drink coffee and write longhand in wire-bound notebooks. In return for his loyalty, the restaurant has hosted book launches for him. At one of them, the staff wore T-shirts emblazoned with "A nice place to visit. A great place to die." The St. Clair Broiler permanently closed in the fall of 2017. Setting for the Cork O'Connor series When Krueger decided to set the series in northern Minnesota, he realized that a large percentage of the population was of mixed ancestry. In college, he had wanted to become a cultural anthropologist; he became intrigued by researching the Ojibwe culture and weaving the information into his books. His books are set in and around Native American reservations. The main character, Cork O'Connor, is part Ojibwe and part Irish. History was a study in futility. Because people never learned. Century after century, they committed the same atrocities against one another or against the earth, and the only thing that changed was the magnitude of the slaughter... Conscience was a devil that plagued the individual. Collectively, a people squashed it as easily as stepping on a daisy. Krueger has read the first Ojibwe historian, William Whipple Warren, Gerald Vizenor and Basil Johnston. He has also read novels by Louise Erdrich and Jim Northrup. Krueger began to meet the Ojibwe people and because of his interest in their culture.Krueger believes that the sense of place is made resonant by the actions and emotions of the characters within it. He describes it as "a dynamic bond that has the potential to heighten the drama of every scene." Bibliography Cork O'Connor Iron Lake Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (1998), ISBN 0-671-01696-2 Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, paperback (1999), ISBN 0-671-01697-0 Recorded Books (2010), ISBN 1-4407-5520-5, ISBN 978-1-4407-5520-0 Boundary Waters Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (1999), ISBN 0-671-01698-9 Recorded Books (2010), ISBN 1-4407-5524-8, ISBN 978-1-4407-5524-8 Purgatory Ridge Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2001), ISBN 0-671-04753-1 Recorded Books (2010), ISBN 1-4407-5528-0, ISBN 978-1-4407-5528-6 Blood Hollow Atria, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2004), ISBN 0-7434-4586-4 Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, paperback (2005), ISBN 0-7434-4587-2 Mercy Falls Atria, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2005), ISBN 0-7434-4588-0 Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, paperback (2006), ISBN 0-7434-4589-9 Copper River Atria, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2006), ISBN 0-7432-7840-2 Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, paperback (2007), ISBN 1-4165-1446-5 Thunder Bay Atria, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2007), ISBN 0-7432-7841-0 Atria Books, trade paperback (2009), ISBN 978-1-4391-5782-4 Red Knife Atria Books, hardcover (2008), ISBN 978-1-4165-5674-9 Atria Books, trade paperback (2009), ISBN 978-1-4165-5675-6 Heaven's Keep Atria Books, hardcover (2009), ISBN 978-1-4165-5676-3 Atria Books, trade paperback (2010), ISBN 978-1416556770 Vermilion Drift Atria Books, hardcover (2010), ISBN 978-1439153840 Atria Books, trade paperback (2011), ISBN 978-1439153871 Northwest Angle Atria Books, hardcover (2011), ISBN 978-1439153956 Atria Books, trade paperback (2012), ISBN 978-1439153963 Trickster's Point Atria Books, hardcover (2012), ISBN 978-1451645675 Atria Books, trade paperback (2013), ISBN 978-1451645712 Tamarack County Atria Books, hardcover (2013), ISBN 978-1451645750 Atria Books, trade paperback (2014), ISBN 978-1451645774 Windigo Island Atria Books, hardcover (2014), ISBN 978-1476749235 Atria Books, trade paperback (2015), ISBN 978-1476749242 Manitou Canyon Atria Books, hardcover (2016), ISBN 978-1476749266 Atria Books, trade paperback (2017), ISBN 978-1476749273 Sulphur Springs Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, Hardcover (2017), ISBN 978-1501147340 Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, Trade Paperback (2018), ISBN 978-1501147432 Desolation Mountain Atria Books (2018), ISBN 978-1501147463 Lightning Strike Atria Books (2021), ISBN 978-1982128685 Fox Creek Atria Books (2022), ISBN 978-1982128715Stand-alone novels The Devil's Bed Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2003), ISBN 0-7434-6636-5 Pocket Star paperback (2003) Ordinary Grace Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2013), ISBN 978-1451645828 Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, trade paperback (2014), ISBN 978-1451645859 This Tender Land Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2019), ISBN 978-1476749297 “The River We Remember” Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, hardcover (2023), ISBN 978-1-9821-7921-2Anthologies "Hixton" in Crimes By Moonlight, Berkley Publishing (ebook, 2010) "Bums" in USA Noir, Akashic Books.... 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