Book tours Archives - William Kent Krueger

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“Sulfur Springs” is out!

August 22, 2017

I feel like a father who ought to be giving everyone cigars. My newest child comes out today. Sulfur Springs goes on sale at bookstores everywhere. It’s been available for pre-order via the Internet for some time now, but today it’s on bookshelf displays, and it’s such a thing of beauty. This is one of my favorite covers for one of my favorite novels in the series.

Sulfur Springs takes Cork out of his beloved Minnesota to Arizona, where he finds himself in the hostile Sonoran Desert, suffering in the blistering July heat, on a desperate search for the missing son of his new wife, Rainy Bisonette. It’s a wild ride of a story, involving drug and human trafficking across our border with Mexico, clashes between those who want to help the refugees and those who want to hunt them, and Cork’s gradual awareness that his new wife is keeping secrets from him that could prove fatal.

Beginning with the launch this evening at Once Upon A Crime, the fine mystery bookstore in Minneapolis, I’ll be on a long book tour until mid-November, making more than fifty appearances. If I’m going to be visiting a bookstore near you, I’d love to see you at the event. I promise you a good time.

Book tours, Sulfur Springs

“Sulfur Springs” is almost here!

July 19, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

The launch of Sulfur Springs, the next book in my Cork O’Connor series, is just about a month away (August 22). Here’s a little of what Publishers Weekly had to say about the release:

“Former sheriff Cork O’Connor, Edgar-winner Krueger’s tragedy-plagued hero, faces further heartache in his moving and suspenseful 16th outing… As usual, Krueger does a fine job combining distinctive characters with a satisfying plot.”

The Book Spy review says, “The… suspense is like pouring gasoline on the fire, making William Kent Krueger’s latest novel one of his best thrillers yet.”

Signed Copies Available for Pre-order from Barnes and Noble!

My full, updated tour schedule is available here. If I’m not coming to a bookstore near you, but you would still like a signed copy, don’t despair. I’ve signed a thousand copies for Barnes and Noble. They’re available for pre-order; just use this link.

Of course, you can also order signed books from most of the stores where I’ll be appearing.

I hope to see you somewhere on the road!

Book tours, Sulfur Springs

Can you go home again?

April 25, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Thomas Wolfe didn’t think you can go home again. This weekend, I’m going to find out if he was right.

The photo is what I looked like at seventeen, when I lived in Hood River, Oregon, a small town on the south bank of the Columbia River. I spent most of my high school years there, years important to me in so many ways. The town folks have chosen my novel Ordinary Grace for their annual Hood River Reads program. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I’ll be presenting a writer’s workshop, speaking to the community, and dropping into the schools to talk with students.

It’s been a long time since I visited, and I’ve never been back in this way before, returning to discuss my writing, and especially Ordinary Grace, a novel that, in many respects, Hood River helped to shape. I’m looking forward to cruising past the house my family occupied, making a pilgrimage to the place where I first kissed a girl, standing on the football field where I was a terrible quarterback. I hope to be gathering with friends who still call Hood River their home.

Although Minnesota is my home now, the place that makes my heart sing, I still think about Hood River all the time. The past is never dead. It’s with us always, alive in our memories. It can still excite us, scare us, thrill us. All that we were a part of, every adolescent antic, can still make us cringe or laugh or cry. Probably, when I’m in Hood River, I’ll experience all these things.

Postscript:

Can you go home again? The answer, I’m very happy to say, is a resounding, “Yes!”

When I returned to Hood River, Oregon, where I’d spent some of the most important years of my life, I received the warmest of welcomes. My high school classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen in nearly fifty years, the committee that had worked so hard to plan the Hood River Reads program, the students in the schools where I spoke, and the crowd who joined me at the library to hear what I had to say about Ordinary Grace, all embraced this prodigal son with an affection that moved me deeply.

Hood River is one of the most beautiful places on earth, maybe rivaled only by the beauty in the hearts of the people who continue to call it home.

Book tours, Ordinary Grace, Personal

2016 Highlights

December 27, 2016

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Looking back on some favorite memories from 2016…

January: A fan,Kate Olsen, took this photo of me on the sly. The coffee shop is one of the many where I sit and write very early every morning. I love the photo. It reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, Hopper’s “Nighthawks.”

February: A full house in Alexandria, MN for the Douglas County One Book, One Community Read! Thanks to Tessa Dutcher for the photo.

March: I visited southern Arizona to research #16 in my Cork O’Connor series, Sulfur Springs. Here I am atop Montezuma Pass in the Coronado National Memorial. Visible behind me is the wide San Pedro River Valley, the route Coronado used to enter this territory. It’s also a corridor for the entry of illegal aliens seeking sanctuary here in the states. Sulfur Springs will be about this difficult situation confronting Americans north and south of a border now marked by an enormous fence visible even from this great height.

April: My wife and I spent a weekend in Omaha with lots of family. While there, we visited the National Park Service’s Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Headquarters. Fascinating! Among the many items on display were reproductions of the uniforms the expedition’s two leaders wore to impress the Native population they encountered. Anyone could don the clothing, and I couldn’t resist. But I think I look more like Napoleon than Meriwether Lewis.

June: Why do I love small town libraries? Because the wonderful librarians there know small town politics. Just look what Meredith Vaselaar, director of the branch library in Adrian, Minnesota, twisted the arms of the mayor and the city councilmen into doing for the day of my visit there. A ticker tape parade down Broadway in New York City couldn’t be any sweeter.

July: I was in Petoskey, Michigan, for a couple of book events sponsored by the Bay View Association, a Chautauqua community. As many of you Hemingway fans may know, Petoskey was one of Papa’s favorite haunts as he grew into manhood and became famous. Here I am at the City Park Grill. In Papa’s day, it was called the Annex, and he spent a good deal of time sitting at this bar, drinking, writing, probably holding forth vociferously with the locals. That’s him above me on the wall. I had to sit in the place he usually occupied (second stool from the end) and lift my glass in a toast to his memory.

August: Back to the southern Arizona desert, spitting distance from the border, to research Sulfur Springs. Don’t ever say that I don’t put everything on the line to make sure I get my stories right!

September: The Manitou Canyon book tour kicked off at Minneapolis’ Once Upon a Crime. Thanks to Mindy Mejia for the photo.

Manitou Canyon debuted at #11 on the New York Times bestseller list. Wahoo!!! Thanks to everyone who bought a copy early to help this happen.

October: Writer David Corbett and his dog Hamley were among the crowd at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA.

At the Great Valley Bookfest, held yearly in Manteca, California, the town in which I was living when I graduated from high school. What a terrific celebration of the written word. And just look at this! Local artist Kathleen Banzon was commissioned to paint the cover of Ordinary Grace for a permanent collection the Bookfest has begun. It wasn’t quite finished, but I was so honored to see this beautiful beginning.

On Sharp Top Mountain in Virginia.

November: The Sioux Falls Barnes & Noble really stocked up on Manitou Canyon!

At the New England Crime Bake’s “Mooses & Hunters 2016,” with Lucy Burdette, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Hallie Ephron.

December: Mystery Writers of America has asked those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to receive an Edgar Award for our work to send a current photo, author and the Edgar together. Eddie and I wish you all Happy Holidays and a Joyous New Year!

Book tours, Manitou Canyon, Personal

Bunker Hill

November 9, 2016

Posted by William Kent Krueger

I admit it. This morning I cried.

I’m in Boston for the New England Crime Bake, a great mystery conference coming up this weekend. I came to Boston early so that I could experience this place that, in so many ways, is the birthplace of American democracy. Today, I walked the Freedom Trail, which ended at Bunker Hill. Here I am at the foot of the memorial to that bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War. When I read about the men who stood here, shoulder-to-shoulder, facing overwhelming odds because they understood that to die in defense of freedom was a noble thing, I wept.

It’s fitting that I’m here this morning. We have just come to the end of another hard-fought battle that, in its way, is a tribute to democracy. The reins of our government will soon be handed over in a bloodless exchange that, though not all may agree with, all should be willing to abide by, because the majority in this democracy has spoken.

Who we voted for yesterday is irrelevant now. The decision has been made. If we, all of us, truly believe in this way of government secured for us by those who stood ready to die on Bunker Hill, we will join together in unity. What has been a divisive period can now become, if we work with true hearts toward this end, a time of reconciliation.

I can’t help but feel that we stand on the threshold of a new political period, with incredible challenges ahead. I would like to believe that we can put aside rancor and stand shoulder-to-shoulder once again. What comes at us up the hill may not be the enemy of old. It may be the necessity of looking at ourselves and our world in a different way. It may be accepting some cold realities about the disillusionment of a great many of our fellow citizens and a government that often seems to serve its own self-interest above the interests of its people. There’s plenty of reason to wring our hands and cry that the end times are near, but that’s the easy response.

We are Americans, all. We have come from people who, at Bunker Hill and so many places like it, risked everything to defend the dream of a democratic nation. It seems to me time once again to roll up our sleeves and get down to the hard work of shaping a future. We can simply stand back and let others do the shaping and complain. Or we can take our place in this democracy, work within the guidelines a pretty good document called the Constitution of the United States, and find ways together to solve the problems that threaten us all. We don’t always have to agree with one another. But we should always do our best to respect one another.

And so I say with a full and hopeful heart on this day after a democratic election, God bless America.

Book tours, Personal

Archive for Book tours

“Sulfur Springs” is out!

“Sulfur Springs” is almost here!

Can you go home again?

2016 Highlights

Bunker Hill

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