William Kent Krueger

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last thirteen novels were all New York Times bestsellers. Ordinary Grace , his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year. The companion novel, This Tender Land , was published in September 2019 and spent nearly six months on the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent stand-alone, The River We Remember , published in 2023, was featured on many best-of-the-year lists, as well as receiving an Edgar Award nomination for Best Novel. Over the next few years, I logged a bit of timber, worked a lot of construction, published a few magazine articles, and generally enjoyed life. I married—that lovely Cornhusker named Diane—and we pretty much had a ball. Then we conceived our first child and had to get serious about life. In the summer of 1980, we moved to St. Paul, Minnesota so that Diane could attend law school. She gave birth to our second child in the first semester of her final year—and still made the Dean’s List. It was during this period that I began to write in earnest and to develop the habits that became the basis for the writing discipline I follow to this day.