"O" Is for Outlaw

Rating:
Summary: Very highly recommend--a fast, terrific read
Review: The peanut butter munching, spirited Kinesy Millhone returns inSue Grafton's O IS FOR OUTLAW. With her characteristic flair, Kinseyonce again delves into a dangerous world to seek answers. Unlikeprevious novels, however, these answers begin with Kinsey's own pastand a phone call.... Her quest into the past reveals a Kinsey thatreaders have never met, showing her vulnerabilities and regrets,rounding out this marvelous character.

Sue Grafton's colorfulmetaphors, crisp writing style and gritty details creates an addictiveread in O IS FOR OUTLAW. Kinsey's quirky personality takes on avulnerability unmatched in previous novels as the past catches up toher. Indeed, each of the secondary characters is likewise richly drawnand believable thereby creating layers of intrigue. The conclusion ofO IS FOR OUTLAW proves to be powerful and satisfying even as it keepsthe reader guessing until the end. Very highly recommended

Rating:
Summary: Grafton does it again!
Review: This was one of Sue Grafton's best efforts in the series. I felt that she was getting a little bored with Kinsey's character starting at about "J"- but she's back in full force now. I love the quips & funnies she injected into "O" along with the great story line..as much as I love Kinsey I sure do wish she'd use a "Fantastic Sam's" coupon & get a decent haircut...We all realize how cheap Kinsey is but the self-inflicted haircuts are brought up in just about every novel...this is taking frugalness to the extreme. Regardless, I still love her character & I'll read the series to "Z"- but if Kinsey was my best friend the haircutting thing would really be getting on my nerves about now. :) It's a good thing that she has so many other fabulous qualities to make you love her..Can't wait for "P is for Peril".

Rating:
Summary: She Keeps You Hooked
Review: Another captivating mystery by the alphabet mistress herself. Sue Grafton really knows how to tell a story really painting each scene very vividly. Susan really takes you into the personal world of Kinsey Milhoune. You see a vulnerable side to Kinsey as she realizes that she may have wronged her first husband. However, the complications are quite intriguing with the many lives her husband did lead. As complex as this mystery is, Susan Grafton analyzes all aspects of each character and his or her possible connection to the crime. In the end, the perpertrator is revealed leaving you to believe never to leave one stone unturned. This will appeal to most audiences.

Rating:
Summary: Gotta luv Kinsy!
Review: Sue Grafton has created one of the most interesting private detectives that I have ever met, in her character, Kinsey Millhone. Kinsey is a spunky, stubborn, and intelligent woman who runs her own detective agency. All too frequently she winds up buried deep in a murder, whether it be resent, or old. And she doesn't rely on anything but good old fashioned legwork and logic to solve the mystery.

Rating:
Summary: You just never know where Kinsey is going to take you...
Review: With a Sue Grafton mystery you just never know where you are going to end up and the most innocuous of events can lead down the path of every more complex clues and events. We have as our guide Kinsey Millhone, single, female, age 36 and working as a Private Investigator in St Theresa, 95 miles out of Los Angeles in the year 1986. And what a guide. Although she is quite ordinary doesn't smoke, doesn't drink much, is not hounded by demons - doesn't often carry a gun even, she is engaging, humorous and knows when to get on with business.

And right now business seems slow. She contacted out of the blue by a man who bids on the contents of defaulted storage lockers - and he has some of her belongings to sell. Kinsey knows they belong to her first ex-husband, Mickey Magruder, but why are they being sold? Although she hasn't seen him for over 15 years she knows he would never default unless there was something amiss.

Following the trail he has left she finds herself drawn deeper into the past, back to 1971, Vietnam, to the Honky-Tonk, a bar they used to hang out in, and into the reasons why she left Magruder in the first place. While they were both working for the police he had asked her to lie for him, to give him an alibi for the night when a man called Benny Quintero had been beaten up and had died as a result. Magruder, had left the police force to avoid having to answer charges for this - and Kinsey - disgusted at his behaviour in asking her to lie, had left him.

It seems that this old case has some bearing on current events - for Mickey seems to have paid for it - possibly with his life. Now Kinsey is finding out what happened to her ex-husband - but for a man who did not like to give out his address, an awful lot of people seem to know where he lived, and seem to be turning up to search his apartment. And Kinsey's own life now hangs in the balance.

This mystery is definitely one of her best. There is are a lot of leads to sort through and a lot of dead-ends - and seeming dead-ends. I felt for Kinsey in this too. She had only been 21-22 when she had married Mickey back in 1971 and the marriage had lasted less than a year. She has to sort through her own feelings for why she left him, but also deal with other people and crimes by people not much older than she was at that time - and I found that interesting, for this affects her thinking at some stages in the book.

You could easily read this without having read a thing by Sue Grafton before. Each mystery is self contained, and where characters are repeated they are generally given a brief introduction so you know where they fit in with the scheme of things. As there is generally not much personal development and the book is more about the crime than herself you don't have to worry about missing out on a great deal.

I also loved Kinsey's lack of affinity with animals which has resulted in some wonderful scenes in previous books - and in this book. She is not a dog person, she is not a cat person - but she always seems to end up with some dog or cat to have to explain her behaviour to along the way.

I find Kinsey incredibly addictive - I can't wait for P to come out in mid 2001!

Rating:
Summary: 'O' is for openness....
Review: And openness is a new characteristic for Kinsey Milhone. Always in the past 14 novels, we've glimpsed at her--she's almost a one dimensional assemblage of characteristics: exercise, junk food, neatness, generosity. It was almost as if Sue Grafton kept a list of personality traits and made sure that Kinsey exhibited them in each novel.

But this fifteenth in the series is different: Kinsey confronts her former husband and her former life, and the precipitous descision she made to leave both. The ramifications of her choice spelled disaster and pain for Mickey Magruder and -- ultimately -- for Kinsey the realization that Mickey was a hero of sorts.

Yes, this is an exiting mystery novel with the familiar excitment and color of Sue Grafton's excellent series. But "O" is more: it is a portrait of an emerging woman who must learn to live with the sorrow of her past and present choices.

Rating:
Summary: Ten Thousand Stars
Review: For some of us, a time comes when we learn we don't know much. All these many years I've been reading mysteries and adventure stories by the likes of Dashiell Hammett, John LeCarre, Len Deighton, Patrick O'Brian, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Edgar Allen Poe ... and believing all the time I was enjoying them.

Then one day a friend handed me "O is For Outlaw". I wasn't forty pages into it before all my literary favorites went up in smoke.

Could any other character in all of literature possess the pluck, the derring-do, the limitless bravado of the hugely popular Kinsey Millhone? Teddy Rich would sell her the name of a certain storage place for $30. Kinsey decides instead to get it free by burglarizing Teddy's home. It wasn't that Kinsey was short on funds. Indeed, she was taking a breather after concluding a job that left her with a fat bank account.

Never mind that she has only three hours after leaving Terry to pull off the caper, and that she doesn't know his physical address. Kinsey solved the address problem by calling the U.S. Postal Service from a pay phone and having them cross-search by his PO Box number. (Dumb me! I'm so inarticulate with the USPS by phone that I can't even learn the cost of mailing a package of known weight from one ZIP to another.) Never mind that the document of unknown size or appearance might not even be in Terry's house, and may be buried in a mountain of trashy files if it is. For this scene to work the paper has to be lying right out where Kinsey can snatch it during a hit-and-run job. Lo and behold, it is, and she does. This stuff is not for the faint-hearted.

Ex-cop and licensed private eye Kinsey has to know burglary is a felony, an offense that could end her gumshoe profession, not to mention land her in jail. She would know, too, that the California Penal Code justifies use of deadly force by citizens to prevent burglary, statutory justification which was made more emphatic following a little housebreaking and entering spree some might recall. During that spree, Sharon Tate and friends were murdered, and a few nights later Gino La Bianca and his wife were slain in their home. The rampage is generally known as the Charles Manson murders. A private eye would be a little cautious about breaking and entering.

Who else in literature would give us such nail-biting thrills when Kinsey could have denied us them for a measly thirty bucks? And it wasn't that she was so desperate for the name of the business that she burgled the house, even if it saved her $30. In fact, she didn't even want it. Even after she got it she wondered why she had gone to the trouble. But Kinsey wasn't yet in on what old Fate was up to.

Now, a scene designer of lesser genius would have made the information critical to Kinsey, and then had Teddy refuse to sell it to her, making the burglary mandatory, and (ahem) lend it credibility. Fearless, indomitable Kinsey! Living on the ragged edge, and when there isn't an edge she creates one. Now I know why people undertake the perilous ascent of Mt. Everest, knowing beforehand that their frozen remains may reside forever on that rarefied slope. Mike Hammer, Nero Wolfe, Sam Spade - spineless wimps compared to Kinsey Millhone.

I just love the way Grafton describes like an interior decorator the details of every structure in which Kinsey finds herself. Architectural Digest without the pictures. And she does so with street scenes as well, however dull they might be. By golly, us readers have a right to have our noses rubbed in the good, the bad, and the ugly!

And gosh, how grateful I am when a story gives me new perspectives on things. I'll bet there were throngs of readers like me who appreciated learning that peanut butter looks like caramel colored goo. All my life I had thought peanut butter looked like ... well, like peanut butter. For those legions of us with no mental image of pickle slices, we are told they look like green polka dots. Well, they don't really, but the metaphor might help us discern pickle slices from salami slices.

As loath as I am to draw attention to an act of heroism of my own, I must if this is to be a sincere and candid review. I stopped reading on page 40. Scout's honor, I did. I did it knowing that in my hands was THE work that shines like Venus in the night sky, a work whose equal will never be seen in ten thousand years.

But I must admit to a cowardly reason for denying myself this treasure of a hundred lifetimes. I can henceforth go on reading and enjoying the common works.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than Average Entry in the Series
Review: One of Grafton's better Kinsey books (which is saying a lot, because none of them are dogs). Because the victim here is Kinsey's first husband, there's a fairly seamless mix of the mystery du jour and Kinsey backstory in this novel. The ystery itself unfolds nicely and with a minimum of sheer luck. The incidental characters are a nice mix, and Grafton manages the now rather hefty task of touching base with most all of the characters and elements that have been part of the series. And as always, Kinsey learns, suffers, grows, and comes face to face with more hard truths about herself.

After so many entries in the series, there is still more to know and love about this character, and the formula remains familiar but fresh. This is still one of the sharpest, snappiest gumshoes in the business. If you have enjoyed other novels in the series at all, this one will not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: I have read all the Kinsey Millhone books, and I enjoyed this one the most. Kinsey is an endearing character, and Ms. Grafton makes her seem so real, and so likeable. It was really nice to have a book dedicated to her younger life before she became the hard-bitten PI that we know and love. In this book we find a softer and much more likeable Kinsey and I'm sure the tender feelings that she finds she carries for this, her first husband, probably surprised her more than anything else while she discovers his life in the intervening years since their marriage. For someone just starting to read the series, this really isn't a bad book to begin with, and it will certainly whet your appetite for the rest. It's a quick and very satisfying read, and I can't wait now until the P book comes out.

Rating:
Summary: O should be for' OUTSTANDING'!
Review: Sue Grafton has topped herself this time. The twists and turns in her character development are stellar! I have enjoyed all of the 'alphabet murders' thus far (this one makes the 15th in the series). Never before has she brought me literally to tears. The story moves swiftly,blending past and present in Kinseys life. You feel the frustration with her when she hits dead ends and finally you feel as though you are weeping with her by storys' end.