William Kent Krueger did not always have his feet firmly planted in the realm of mystery writing.

When he was growing up, his father — a high school English teacher — thought of the genre as “the poor stepchild of literature; so I never read mysteries,” he said.

“So, I thought, I’ll never be a mystery writer,” added Krueger, during a phone interview earlier this week.

Krueger will chat more about his craft during his visit to Austin this week, at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at Sweet Reads and Candy in Austin. He will speak at a Phi Theta Kappa conference on Friday.

His early expectations about his writing genre turned out to be a vast understatement. Krueger, 68, is an author whose 67-count ‘em-17 mysteries featuring Sheriff Cork O’Connor are more often than not on the New York Times bestseller list.

Reviews of his books refer to his stylistic imagery, and action that is often described as “pulse-pounding,” and “gut-punching.”

He admits that he grew up on western movies, “and those of us of a generation who watched those movies, tend to work, to write, in very cinematic ways,” he said. That is especially true of his last O’Connor novel, “Sulphur Springs.”

“It is my homage to westerns with good guys, bad guys, white hats, black hats,” he said.

His next journey with O’Connor will be “Desolation Mountain,” scheduled for an August release, whose story centers around a plane crash that killed a U.S. senator – reminiscent of the death of Paul Wellstone. Krueger admitted the crash triggered the idea for his book, but the similarities end there.

While he loves writing his mysteries featuring O’Connor, he said the greatest satisfaction came from the publication of his book, “Ordinary Grace.”

“Because it was so personal,” he emphasized. “It allowed me to write about my childhood; I wanted it to be a reminiscence, an invocation of time and place.”

He succeeded. Kirkus Review said, “the world of this novel is one of redemptive grace and mercy, as well as unidentified corpses and unexplainable tragedy.” The book went on to earn an Edgar Award in 2013. A companion novel to “Ordinary Grace,” will be released this fall, entitled, “The Tender Land.”

Still, Krueger said, even with novels such as “Ordinary Grace,” mystery is still at the heart of the book.

“I don’t stray too far from my (mystery) genre,” he said.

He said he was influenced mightily by the late Tony Hillerman, who broke social barriers, Krueger said, when writing about the Native American culture.

“Before Tony, writers never wrote about characters other than those who were white,” he said. He counts books by authors such as James Lee Burke, and his friend, Louis Penney, among his favorite reads.

He considers himself lucky to be able to write novels that also play an important role reflecting his passion for the underprivileged and disenfranchised — undocumented immigrants, victims of human trafficking — and his concern for the environment.

There are other fields to plow, he said — he would like nothing better, he said, than “to write a ghost story.”

“Oh, like everyone else of my generation, we grew up listening to ghost stories while sitting around the campfire,” he said. “What could be better than a ghost story? I’d love to write a ghost story that would knock your socks off.”