Rating: 
Summary: O if for Oustanding
Review: In this 15th serving of the alphabet mysteries, Grafton dishes up a tale of hidden past and murder, all carefully plotted against the complexity of her narrator's personality and good-humoured observations.O is for Outlaw rates as one of my favourite Grafton's novels--the adventure of Kinsey Millhone, peanut-butter sandwich fan and PI, takes on an unprecedent turn of facing a past she had put behind her for years. On the trail of solving another mystery, this time her own, she faces another upheal battle against evil in the shape of a too familiar face. Read this book if you've never read an alphabet mystery -- if you're a fan of Grafton, a lot of questions about Kinsey's past are revealed at last. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: I am still not tired of Kinsey
Review: It's pretty hard to keep a series going this long without readers saying yeah, yeah, yeah, enough already. Not so with Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone. She's got enough quirks, character flaws, secrets, and depth of character to probably keep me interested right up to Z is for Whatever Grafton comes up with.
In O Is for Outlaw, Kinsey gets re-involved with ex-spouse Mickey Magruder and exposes some details of her past marriage, which will delight regular readers who pant for the newest addition to the series. This one gets tricky, switching back and forth between past and present, as Kinsey stumbles on some memorabilia that provides him with an alibi for an incident that let to Kinsey leaving him in the first place. Then, bingo, Mickey gets shot and is lying in a coma, and Kinsey investigates the shooting, which leads to all sorts of complications.
I do believe this is my favorite so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Consistent Grafton
Review: Like many of the people here I've also read this whole series. I think Kinsey Millhone is my favorite among all of the female PI's that abound today and I find that Ms. Grafton is consistent in her portrayal from book to book. "O" is no exception to that. There were many things I liked about this book. The way it begins with Kinsey breaking into someone's house because she won't pay $10 for information is funny. Kinsey's outlook is just a little off-center and I find that amusing. So, I liked the book. However, after saying all of that I was disappointed in the ending. I hate it when the protagonist does something dumb just to advance the plot. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone who hasn't read it yet, however, if you're being pursued by someone who has a gun and you're pretty sure this person means to harm you would you drive right past not one, but TWO Santa Teresa deputy cars and the LAPD detectives who are backing you up? I don't think so. This was clearly designed to end the book in a certain way at a certain place but it was done in an unbelievable way. With all of Ms. Grafton's expertise this surprised me. Good book anyway. Kinsey Millhone is head and shoulders above her other sisters in crime.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: O is for Outlaw Sue Grafton Henry Holt and Co. 1999 ISBN 0805059555 H.C. Mystery/Slueth This is the 15th installment of Kinsey Millhone, and this is the most personal case of all. Kinsey is contacted by Teddy Rich a storage locker scavenger who's come up with a box of old documents about herself that he is willing to sell her for $30.00, she talks him down to $20.00. In this book we find out all about Kinsey's first marriage to Mickey Magruder a vice cop who lost everything when he was accused of a murder 15 years ago. I had not had the pleasure of reading all 15 novels by Sue Grafton but if they are all like this one they are wonderful and I'll get the others to read, she has made a fan out of me. This book held me in suspense from the very beginning to the very end,with lots of left turns and plot twists to keep it fast paced and exciting. Kinsey discovers that she may of been wrong about her ex-husband, so she decides to look into the case herself even though it will put her in danger. The events flowed through in a timely manner and the ending tied up all the loose strings.
Rating:
Summary: Kinsey Never Gives Up
Review: Private Detective Kinsey Milhone gets a phone call from Teddy Rich, a scavenger who buys the contents of defaulted storage units and then resells them. He's found documents containing her name and she buys them. The storage locker belonged to her first husband, a cop named Mickey Magruder. She'd left him fourteen years earlier, when he asked her to lie and alibi him. She did, even though it was a murder case and Mickey looked good for the crime. She always believed him guilty, but a letter she finds in the stuff she got from Rich proves he was with another woman at the time of the victim's death. Now she wonders if she'd been a little more supportive, believed in Mickey, maybe things might have worked out differently. She also wonders why he couldn't pay for his storage locker and she sets out to find out. By the time she finds him, he's been shot, is unconscious and under police protection in a Los Angeles hospital. She is initially eager to cooperate with the LAPD, but changes her mind when she finds out they're acting like she is the prime suspect. So while Mickey remains unconscious, she eludes the LAPD and investigates her ex's life, uncovering evidence of multiple false identities and a strange alliance with the son of an old police buddy in Santa Teresa. She also makes some disturbing discoveries about her ex-husband's women, current and long past and she even learns a little something about herself. As usual when Kinsey gets her teeth into a problem, she refuses to let go. Her bulldog-like pursuit takes her into ever increasing danger. The pacing increases exponentially, like a runaway train, and you find yourself reading well into the night. It's hard to believe how Sue Grafton can keep up the suspense after so many books, but somehow she does, somehow the stories just keep getting better.
Rating:
Summary: She Asks the Right Questions
Review: Sue Grafton proves again that she is a superb stylist as well as a spinner of fine yarns. This one involves kinsey's ex-husband, former cop Mickey MacGruder, whom she walked out on a decade earlier, believing he had been involved in a beating death and then tried to get her to lie for him in order to cover it up. The surface story has Kinsey trying solve the msytery of why MacGruder was recently shot (he lies in a coma throughout the whole of the story); and the back story, perhaps the most compelling part of the book, takes us all the way back to the Viet Nam Conflict and sheds new light on the men who served in that war and an unsolved (and largely unknown) murder that is the key to solving all the subsequent murders. As usual, Kinsey learns that people are not what they seem to be. Your friend is your enemy; your enemy is your friend. As usual, the driving force, as in all of Grafton's books, is the need to know. She asks the questions, and we are forced to stick around to see their answers. This book begins with one that is simple yet engaging: Where did this box with all of my (Kinsey's) grade school papers come from? Answer: from your ex-husband, who let his storage lockbox payment lapse. Why didn't he pay it? Answer: He has been shot and is in a coma going on three months. Who shot him? Answer: The police think you did it, Kinsey. Me? I haven't seen the man in ten years. Why would they think I did it? Answer: Read the book. You won't be able to put it down. p.s. The minor characters in this book, like Henry and the two maiden sisters, are so charming as to be worth the price of the book, though Grafton does seem to have an inexplicable penchant for octogenarians.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: The author was recommended to me by a voracious reader of mystery, a good friend whose opinion I respected. Unfortunately, the book was banal. Why doesn't she write "Z is for Zero", which clearly states the content of her whole alphabetical series, and be done with it- spare us the rest.
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