A Work in Progress:

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It has taken letters A-F to get to have a year pass in the life of Kinsey Millhone. Maybe even less than a year actually. I've just started G is for Gumshoe and Kinsey is celebrating a birthday. Every book from A through F she has been 32 and now, May 5th she is celebrating her 33rd year. So, Happy Birthday, Kinsey!

So much has happened in those first six books. Mostly it seems it is just business as usual, though Sue Grafton does offer up bits about Kinsey and her private life. What I think I like most about her is she is a no-nonsense independent woman with a wry sense of humor. Oh, and she is exceedingly irreverent.

Things I know about Kinsey. She was twice married (her second husband made an appearance in the last book). She was very briefly a cop. She likes living small--she rents a converted garage, which in the book before last was blown up (and luckily not with her inside--or not exactly). She has a sort of on-again-off-again romance-sort-of-thing going with a married-but-mostly-separated policeman. She knows how to pick locks and carries a gun which she knows well how to use. She likes to run three miles a day to stay fit. She has one "classy" black outfit that has made its appearance in a number of books, but the same story that saw the end of her garage (or was it another book . . .) saw the demise of the dress. She keeps an overnight case in her VW. She also has law books and other essentials in her car, because you never know when you will need something. She doesn't seem to have many hobbies, and for her reading for pleasure is law books and detecting textbooks. But over the holidays she did read a Len Deighton novel, if I am remembering correctly.

She just seems like a fine-tuned private investigating, no-nonsense, won't take any crap kinda gal. And now she is thirty-three and about to move into her newly rebuilt (thanks to her friend and landlord Henry) garage come-apartment. She's afraid it is going to be too fancy (because she is not a fancy kind of woman) and too much--she likes simple and small, but then it IS Henry's house, so his prerogative to do as he pleases. Grafton doesn't skimp on details and for a hardboiled detective story writer who keeps her prose tidy and succinct, she has a lyrical way of writing about Santa Teresa and its seasonal rhythms. But she has shared a bit more about Kinsey this time out. She is 118 pounds in a 5'6" frame with hazel eyes with dark, thick hair. Which, by the way, she has decided to let grow out rather than give it the usual trim using her nail scissors (yes, that is SO Kinsey).

I'd been meaning to share a bit about the last book, but I just keep reading and turning pages and now I find myself already in the opening pages of G, so I am going to backtrack on a bit I read last book that seems so very relevant now with the #metoo movement. (See, Sue Grafton and Kinsey were already making note of this stuff and commenting on it--I wonder what they would think now).

In F is for Fugitive Kinsey is hired to look into a murder case that is nearly two decades old. The man convicted of her murder escaped from prison and has been living a life on the outside. On an entirely unrelated and erroneous crime the man is picked up and released and is discovered to have been living under an assumed name. Now his family has hired Kinsey to try and clear him of the previous murder charge. Seventeen years ago a young woman, of questionable repute, was murdered and he was jailed for the crime he denies.

Jean Timberlake was wild and beautiful and more than one man wanted her. Now Kinsey delves into Jean's hidden past and finds that more than one man was enamored by her. When she begins her investigation she talks to a dentist who briefly dated her, just one man among many to be bedeviled by her. Interesting is her reaction to the conversation she has with this man decades after he dated Jean.

"I gave him my card with a little note on the back, with my telephone number at the Ocean Street. I left his office feeling faintly optimistic and more than a little disturbed. There was something about the idea of grown men haunted by the sexuality of a seventeen-year-old girl that seemed riveting--both pitiable and perverse. Somehow the glimpse he'd given me of the past made me feel like a voyeur."

Hmm. This is one of the things I like about mysteries and crime novels--aside from the piecing of a puzzle, they give such an interesting glimpse into the minds and psychology of not just criminals but into entire cultures. How much life has changed (this was published in the early 80s) but how much remains the same. Anyway, it's early days yet in the G book and I am curious what situation Kinsey is about to find herself in.

Last prompt of the year! I am still in progress and reading November's selection which is William Boyd's Sweet Caress (which I am having mixed feelings about to be honest), but as it is December and the end of the year is rapidly approaching I think it's best to make my stack of choices and think about which book I want to read.

This month's prompt is "Beam Me Up, Scotty", so a little science fiction to wrap up the year. I rarely read this genre and always mean to pick up a book or two over the course of the year, so hopefully will get one in right at the end. I have tried to choose from books I have at home on my shelves already, but a couple of other names came up and I can find them at the library so I will tack on two more books (not shown in the photo) at the end.

Bellwether by Connie Willis -- "Sandra Foster studies fads—from Barbie dolls to the grunge look—how they start and what they mean. Bennett O'Reilly is a chaos theorist studying monkey group behavior. They both work for the HiTek corporation, strangers until a misdelivered package brings them together. It's a moment of synchronicity—if not serendipity—which leads them into a chaotic system of their own, complete with a million-dollar research grant, caffé latte, tattoos, and a series of unlucky coincidences that leaves Bennett monkeyless, fundless, and nearly jobless. Sandra intercedes with a flock of sheep and an idea for a joint project. (After all, what better animal to study both chaos theory and the herd mentality that so often characterizes human behavior?) But scientific discovery is rarely straightforward and never simple, and Sandra and Bennett have to endure a series of setbacks, heartbreaks, dead ends, and disasters before they find their ultimate answer. . . "

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin -- "A lone human ambassador is sent to Winter, an alien world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants can change their gender whenever they choose. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters..." I think this is a classic and should really read it, though I wonder if it might call for more attention and concentration than I can give it at the moment.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline -- "In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them."

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman -- "Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes."

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury -- I think this is a classic in any case, but perhaps a classic of the genre? "Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race." I believe this is a series of interconnected stories?

Not on my pile but under consideration:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers -- "Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star." I've heard good things about this one.

Before Mars by Emma Newman -- One volume in a trilogy, I think. Maybe it doesn't matter which order the books are read in? It sounds interesting. "After months of travel, Anna Kubrin finally arrives on Mars for her new job as a geologist and de facto artist in residence--and already she feels she is losing the connection with her husband and baby at home on Earth. In her room on the base, Anna finds a mysterious note, painted in her own hand, warning her not to trust the colony psychiatrist. A note she can't remember painting. When she finds a footprint in a place that the colony AI claims has never been visited by humans, Anna begins to suspect that she is caught up in an elaborate corporate conspiracy. Or is she losing her grip on reality? Anna must find the truth, regardless of what horrors she might discover or what they might do to her mind."

I'm excited about my pile of books--lots of good choices. Every month I say (or at least think) the same thing--maybe I can squeeze in more than one book from the list? Now the pleasure of perusing them and 'trying them' out before making a choice. Have you read any of these? Any especially good ones I should not miss? (And, yes, I am already working on next year's list of prompts).