Rating: Summary: Another Fun Adventure Review: I absolutely love Kinsey. Her personality shines through once again in this delightful page turner. Another excellent story that just leaves you wanting more. I wish Ms. Grafton could write faster, but wouldn't the alphabet be over sooner? What would "AA" be for? Who would want this to be over? This whole series is so much fun, and the character very likable. A great get-a-way.
Rating: Summary: Arlene B. Waite Review: Too much time spent on changing clothes, taking a jog, eating poorly and jumping in the VW. It appears that writers are so pushed for deadlines that their writing becomes rather mundane. I have read all the alphabet books but will have to look over "P" before buying.
Rating: Summary: Another vintage Kinsey Millhone! Review: I wish Sue Grafton wouldn't wait so long between books; I was slow to get back into the Kinsey Millhone frame of mind. Once in though, I loved it. I thought it was funny(the dog) and poignant.I had to think through the characters,etc. to keep things straight, but I was surprised at the end. I love Kinsey's personal habits and I hope she doesn't change too much in mysteries to come.
Rating: Summary: Anxiously awaited - yet disappointed... Review: As always, I anxiously awaited the latest mystery in Grafton's alphabet series - but this time I was a bit disappointed. Although I enjoyed the insight into Kinsey's first husband and her early years, our fiercely independent Ms. Millhone doesn't seem the type to get all mushy about an ex-husband - much less go out of her way to solve a 15 year-old mystery. In addition, I found the sequence of events that catapulted this mystery a bit unbelievable.The characters in this novel lacked the depth and imagination of Grafton's other mysteries - just as I was warming up to the interesting Cordia, Belmira & Dorothy Hatfield, we're cut off from any developing story line on them. And again I was let down when there was little - to no interaction with Kinsey's previously well developed "family" network. I suspected our dastardly deceptor almost as soon as he was introduced and was rather disappointed when I realized that he wasn't a plot twist. Perhaps Grafton will get back on track with the next in her series - which of course, I'll anxiously await.
Rating: Summary: Classic Grafton, a little contrived Review: Kinsey is her normal self, although I agree we need to speed up the time clock - being stuck in the '80s is disturbing. A few too many coincidences and one incomprehensible move at the end, make some of the climax a bit contrived, but otherwise a good read.
Rating: Summary: An excellent example of the written word Review: I thought the book was great. One thing I must give Sue credit for is the murderer. When you read a bad mystery you know who the killer is by the first chapter. With a mediocre mystery you know who it is (the person thats the least suspected) but the author will put someone in that looks really guilty to try and throw you off. But with a GREAT mystery like this, I never suspected who it was. One thing I should mention, what happened to henry's brother. Rosie was mentioned but not her husband.
Rating: Summary: It is funny at times, but the plot drags on and on. Review: I have read every Sue Grafton novel, and the best one remains "I is for Innocent". This novel is about average. Kinsey is still the wry loner who breaks rules when it suits her, but whose heart is in the right place. Unfortunately, the contrived plot drags on and on. The characters never catch fire. Frankly, I don't care about Kinsey's first ex-husband and I doubt that she would spend so much time and energy uncovering the truth about his past. Nor do I think the murderer would have acted as blatantly as he did. The narrative didn't ring true and it didn't hold my interest. However, Kinsey is a likeable character and there are moments of humor and poignancy that are the saving grace of an otherwise ho-hum novel.
Rating: Summary: One of her best. keeps moving. Review: I have read most of her books and find thisone very good..Mysteriously plotted and full of surprises
Rating: Summary: A most engaging, indeed enthralling, return to form Review: Sue Grafton is a writer who button-holes the reader from the first line and never lets go. Her plots have lately seemed unconvincing but her narrative gifts sweep doubts aside. This latest novel begins with a coincidence worthy of Oliver Twist. P.I. Kinsey Milhone receives a call from a man who makes a living speculatively bidding on the contents of large storage lockers which are being sold off for non-payment of rent. This locker contains a large box of Kinsey Milhone papers. The locker's defaulting tenant was Mickey Magruder, the ex-husband she had walked out on fourteen years earlier. Kinsey walked out because Magruder had demanded she give him a false alibi for a homicide of which she believed him guilty. Among the papers she finds an unopened letter addressed to her fourteen years before from her husband's mistress (a long running infidelity of which she had known nothing) which shows that her husband was not guilty of the killing. The suspicion of manslaughter had driven him to resign from the police and embark on a dismal career as a security guard. Kinsey, feeling guilty that she had suspected him although furious at his infidelity tries fruitlessly to track him down. When she returns to her flat she finds two Los Angeles Homicide detectives waiting at the door: Magruder has been shot and is in a coma from which he is never fated to recover. Some coincidence, right - and that is precisely all it is! The shooting has its roots in the past, indeed with the very homicide which had ruined Magruder's career, and nothing is going to stop a guilt-ridden Kinsey investigating it. The way the plot tracks back and forth between the Viet Nam 70s and the year 1986 in which the story is set reminds one of the way in which Ross MacDonald blended past and present into his extraordinary narratives. O is for Outlaw is not quite in that league but it is very good indeed. Thoroughly recommended.
Rating: Summary: Her Best Yet -- A New Level for Grafton Review: Grafton's best yet. Pulls Kinsey out of a slump. Never sags, shows real depth and interest; great period detail. But I wonder if Grafton isn't going to have to start inching her heroine forward in time a bit more rapidly with successive books. Eleven more books to go gets us to -- when?
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