Sue Grafton’s last (it’s a posthumous publication) novel about her 1980s Californian PI, Kinsey Milhone, finds Kinsey investigating a case of rich kid blackmail that ends up involving a murder or two.
No, no “…. is for ….” this time. Two letters of the alphabet left to go….
Santa Theresa Private Eye, Kinsey Millhone misjudges colleagues old and clients new. But her gut feeling of dislike about Henry’s new neighbours is bang on, and through Henry we also learn how some Californians tacked the five year drought that ran from 1986 to 1991.
It’s the autumn of 1988 as we near the end of Sue Grafton’s Alphabet series.
Kinsey Millhone gets a photocopier (tech development!), investigates the death of a down and out on the Santa Teresa beachfront, and finds more family.
Within a couple of pages I *knew* I’d read this before – but it’s not on sparkly.
Oh no, The System has failed!!
Oh well.
A notch up from the usual easy reading crime capers featuring SoCal private eye, Kinsey Millhone. This time there’s a meeting with the mob, and more focus on the broader cast of characters than Kinsey’s friends and neighbours, and all the better for it. (But that said, I do like Rosie, William and Henry!)
A young man remembers meeting two “pirates” in the woods behind his childhood home, and begins to wonder whether they really were looking for buried treasure…. Detective Cheney Phillips points him in Kinsey’s direction.
The scenario and setting seemed so familiar I thought I might have already read U is for Undertow. But no – it must have been a Bosch.
Along with the main murder mystery, we also learn more about Kinsey’s recently reappeared family and events surrounding her early years as an orphan.