A Work in Progress

Ready for the Weekend Reading Notes

I wonder if it is bad or unusual that I often get so caught up in stories that I almost feel like the characters are real people and I need to check in on them frequently?  Well, that is the case particularly of late with me and Kinsey Millhone.  I always think 'after I finish this letter I am going to read some other mystery", but then I try and find myself wondering what Kinsey is up to . . . 

I am reading O is for Outlaw at the moment.  I have heard that some readers found letter "N" to be a somewhat saggy novel in the alphabet and not a favorite, but I am always amused and entertained by Kinsey, so I quite enjoyed it though found some of it somewhat unnerving (how Kinsey's fingers were dislocated and descriptions from a Japanese text on how to commit suicide . . .).  But whatever people think, Sue Grafton seems to be back in fine form with letter "O". 

I like it when the story begins not with a murder or a new investigative case, but with an average life event that turns into something more, which is what I am finding with this newest installment.  Kinsey is single and happily so, but she was twice married and twice divorced.  In a previous book there was an appearance by her second husband and now we get to take a peek at Kinsey's former life and first serious love affair. 

Have you ever watched that reality show called "Storage Wars" where people bid on the unknown contents of a storage unit whose owner has gone delinquent on?  (Yes, I have on occasion been sucked into the late night adventures of these kinds).  Well, completely out of the blue a man contacts Kinsey offering to sell her a box of memorabilia that once belonged to her but was part of the contents of a storage unit that he purchased.  She takes him up on it and this opens the door to her first marriage and her life when she was just a rookie cop.  Unfortunately for Kinsey, she tracks said ex down and discovers that he has been shot, and guess who is being blamed for the shooting?

What I love about a long running mystery series is getting to really know a character and Kinsey is definitely one of my very favorite fictional characters.  I think I could tell you more about her than people I have worked with for years and years.  So with every new book a few more details of her life and personality are painted into the picture.  And it is gratifying to know that Kinsey likes to read--along with her criminal justice textbooks she has been known to leave in her car, she likes a good mystery, too.

So has this talent of lock picking, which comes in really handy when she needs to find out more about someone she is investigating (or trying to find out what her ex has been up to for the last decade or so they have been apart).

"An Elmore Leonard paperback had been left on the arm of the sofa, open at the midpoint.  Mickey had introduced me to Elmore Leonard and Len Deighton.  In turn, I'd told him about Dick Francis, though I'd never known if he read the British author with the same pleasure I did."

So, I have at least one Elmore Leonard on my bedside pile and many many years ago read a Deighton, so maybe time to look him up as well.  But I have never read any Dick Francis.  Has anyone read and enjoyed any of their books?  Any recommendations?  Althogh I am still working my way through the alphabet you might know that I have been looking for another sleuth to follow the way I have Kinsey!

I am reading the last (most recent and I do hope there will still be more to come) Maisie Dobbs mystery, The American Agent.  For a very long time Maisie was my favorite until Kinsey came along.  I still love her, too, but in a different way.  I tend to gravitate to women authors and sleuths, but if Leonard, Deighton and Francis are good enough for Kinsey (or maybe Sue Grafton), I am all for trying one of them on her suggestion.

I am also embarking on yet another new to me, though highly respected and well known, mystery writer--John D. MacDonald.  This week I came across one of his books in reference to the National Book Award, and apparently he is the only mystery writer (if I am remembering correctly) to have one this award.  Must start at the beginning so I have finally decided on my November prompt ("Something Blue"), his first Travis McGee novel, The Deep Blue Good-by.  How perfect is it that not only is the spine blue but blue is on the cover and the title, too.  I read the blurb and it just appealed so I ordered the first in the series.  Maybe this will be the series I pick up next.  (And I will share more about Travis next week, too).

One more mention.  How did I ever not pick up any of the Flavia de Luce books?  A coworker also reads the Alphabet Mysteries and we chat sometimes about Kinsey and he mentioned that he likes to listen to the Alan Bradley books on audio.  Sure, I'll give the first audio a try, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  My turn at the library audio book finally came up this past week and not even five minutes in and I was hooked.  The stories are read by Jayne Entwistle.  I am very picky when it comes to readers of audio books, but my, I must say she nails it!  I want to go back and listen to the first few chapters over again, but as there are people waiting for the audio book I must press on.  I did, however, get a copy of the book from the library to read along side or after so I can fill in the details (I sometimes listen when I am making dinner and if there are distractions I feel like I miss something and as the cast and setting is so new to me--I don't want to miss anything!).  

If I needed distraction these last few weeks I have surely found it with my mystery reading/listening! And on top of it all, new authors to try and explore!  Looking forward to a good weekend.  I hope you are, too!

Midweek Reading Notes: Mystery Edition!

I'm nearly finished with Sue Grafton's N is for Noose.  I am to that point of no return where I have to find out how the story ends, so I will be finishing today.  I have to say this is one story in the series which has left me a little unsettled.  I know these are hardboiled mysteries and bad things happen, and sometimes bad things happen to Kinsey, but for such an innocuous case as the one she is working on now, she has most decidedly rubbed someone the wrong way with the questions she is posing in her latest investigation.

I am not sure I have written about my last few Kinsey reads (It looks like "L" was the last letter I mentioned here), but in this case she is sort of back with on-again off-again love interest Robert Dietz.  He is actually off stage for most of the story, but it is through him that she must travel north to take on a new case.  The wife of a deceased sheriff is sure something was troubling her husband before a heart attack ended their happy marriage.  She wants to know what was bothering him, and when Kinsey opens this can of worms, she gets more than she bargained for.  

Remember how I thought I should note her many bumps and bruises with each new mystery--well, occasionally they are more serious than a bruise.  Kinsey had two of her fingers dislocated in this story and while that sounds like a minor inconvenience it was a little harrowing to read about an intruder tackling her and roughing up her fingers--first one and then the other.  Crack--finger at a very unhealthy and abnormal direction to body.  The other chilling bit of the story is the "noose" aspect of the title, which I had not given much thought to.  I'm not sure ultimately how it is going to play out, but the descriptions of how a person can hang themselves was a little upsetting.  As usual I have dogeared pages where Kinsey's quips have amused me and made me laugh--maybe I will share a few of them this week, too.  I should really start a tab for her--is it too late?  Seeing as this has become an ongoing project of sorts. 

Which leads me to my next topic.  What do I do when I finish the alphabet?  I am past the halfway mark and I have every intention of finishing the remaining letters next year--sooner rather than later.  I really am enjoying reading these books back to back and feeling the continuity of the storyline and development of the characters.  Who would be equally as interesting and entertaining to repeat the experience with?  Who is your favorite sleuth?  

I've been thinking about mystery series that I want to finish or make progress on, or maybe an entirely new one that would be something I can happily keep returning to.  I tend to read a mystery and then move on to some other crime novel rather than reading them one after another as I have with the Grafton books.  But there is something really appealing and satisfying to know I am making such good progress with a series.  I have started a little list as a matter of fact of potential detectives/sleuths I might want to spend time with next.

New to me (more or less--series I have not yet tried or only read the first book): 

Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache (Quebec, Canada) -- 15 books (have read first)

Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford (Sussex, UK) -- 24 books! (have read first)

Sarah Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski (Chicago, US) -- 20 books (new series for me)

Laura Wilson's DI Ted Stratton (London, UK WWII) -- 5 books (another new series)

Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia (Florence, Italy) -- 14 books (have read first)

Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey (UK) -- 8 books (have read first)

Series I am reading and should finish:

Liza Marklund's Annika Bengtzon (Stockholm, Sweden) -- 11 books (have read first 2)

Maurizio de Giovanni's Commissario Ricciardi -- 9 books (have read the first 2)

Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley (UK) -- (have read 15 out of 20)

Sara Sheridan's Mirabelle Bevan (Brighton, UK) -- 8 books (have finished 2)

Andrew Taylor's Lydmouth series (UK) -- 8 books (have finished first 3)

Laurie King' Mary Russell (Sussex, UK) -- 16 books (have read 8 so far!)

I am already catching up with Maisie Dobbs (the next book is not due out until 2020, so I will easily catch up as I only have one more after I finish my current read).  It's not as if this is a pressing problem, of course, but only an enjoyable quandary to spend my time thinking about.  You know how that goes, right?!

Many Lives & Close Calls of Kinsey Millhone

I wish that when I started reading Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries, I would have noted more details of Kinsey's adventures from each new book.  If anyone has the advantage of nine lives it is surely Kinsey Millhone.  It's funny--as I often will read the description of the next book and think how pedestrian the case/mystery seems.  Just how exciting is it to investigate insurance claims, which she often does, anyway?  Half the time she is just doing a small, simple (it is never simple with Kinsey, though) favor for a friend of a friend.  But then, wham, she is either fast talking herself out of some serious problem or being chased by someone with a gun--maybe in a deserted hospital or an empty house, or why not even while trying to navigate a burning building.  Bingo. 

How does she end up in a Dallas hotel, climbing catwalks and trying to avoid a man with a gun complete with silencer attached?  She agrees to do a small favor for her landlord Henry Pitts is how, which is how L is for Lawless starts out.  The story opens very simply and a favor she is ready to write off as soon as it looks like the case is a dead end.  Anyway, the man who "hired" her (I use that term loosely) ends up firing her when a trip from Santa Teresa seems to dead end in Dallas with an empty duffel bag.  Well, not empty per se, but without any money that she anticipated would be there.

Maybe I should backtrack just a little.  Really this should have been a matter of a little fact checking and the untangling of a request for military benefits for a recently deceased neighbor.  The dead man's family has been trying to wring out the death compensation for their war hero father, only the government agency keeps coming up empty when trying to find proof of the man's identity and proof of service.  He was a war hero with all the tales of bravery to show for it.  The family starts wondering if his war duties were of a clandestine nature, hence no record of his wartime service.  And then there is this mysterious safe with a key hidden away.  Maybe proof that the government is trying to cover up espionage activities.  Only Kinsey has a few other ideas of what the man was up to.

For such a pedestrian case she has had to keep one step away from a killer (or, at the very least wife batterer who is also on their tracks for that hidden money).  Only Kinsey Millhone would leave home for a quick trip to the store for milk and end up catching someone in the throes of an illegal activity--follow him and his very pregnant wife or girlfriend to the airport and then proceed to shadow the woman and the duffel bag to Dallas and then road-trip it to Kentucky.  Whew.  And she had not a piece of luggage, but thankfully with that reliable bag of hers complete with clean underwear and toothbrush and toothpaste.  Not so pedestrian at all.

What I love most about these books, of course, is Kinsey herself.  The mysteries are great, too, and Grafton rarely fails to surprise me.  I mostly read this at the gym and parts of the story made me chuckle rather audibly, which meant I had to take a quick look around and see if anyone caught me.  So I have to share a few excerpts here, though taken out of context they might not be quite as humorous.  I mentioned she ends up in a Dallas hotel?  In order to get her hands on that duffel, or at least be able to look inside at its contents, she swipes a maid's uniform . . .

"I grabbed a dust rag and a vacuum cleaner, found an electrical outlet in the corridor, and began to vacuum my way toward Laura Huckaby's room.  The carpet was an extravagant  meadow of geometric shapes, triangles overlapping in a bright path of high-low gold and green.  Vacuuming is always restful: slow, repetitive motion accompanied by a low groaning noise and that satisfying snap when something really good gets sucked up.  Never had the wall-to-wall carpet been so thoroughly cleaned.  I was working up a sweat, but the effort did permit me to loiter at will."

***

"Here's what I learned being a maid: People seldom look you in the eye.  Occasionally someone's gaze might accidentally glance off your face, but based on the interaction, no one could identify you later in a line up.  Good news for me, although even in Texas I don't think impersonating a maid would be classified as a crime."

***

When she finally gets access to the woman's room . . . and I did wonder why she bought those peppermint patties . . . 

"My uniform made an efficient little rustling sound as I folded the spread in half and then in half again.  I made a hefty jelly roll of it and tucked in one corner.  I turned the sheet down halfway, plumped pillows, and left one of the paper-wrapped Peppermint Patties on the bed table."

In case you were wondering.  Kinsey does get a peek inside the duffel.  She pulls off, not without a bit of humor, her ploy as a maid, but I suspect she best rely on her work as an investigator from here on out.

Yes, another more than satisfying cast solved by the inimitable Kinsey Millhone.

Mystery Reading Round Up: Hit or Miss

I don't think I have written much about the books I have finished reading lately, in particular the mysteries I have been reading.  My reading has been somewhat variable.  The 'misses' haven't been bad reading experiences, just a slightly on the disappointing side perhaps.  But I think it has less to do with the books than with what I seem to be in the mood for lately.

Let's start with Sue Grafton.  I am always pleased by Kinsey Millhone's adventures. She truly cracks me up and with each new book I learn something new.  I literally will guffaw in public over some of the deadpan but hilarious things she says.  I think I need to go back to letter "I", I is for Innocent to be specific.  I have to dig back a bit here, but Kinsey is on her own now as she was 'let go' by California Fidelity with the arrival of a new employee/supervisor (who wants to tighten things up you might say).  No one is happy with him and he is apparently not happy with Kinsey.  Her office is now housed in the same building as an attorney and she is hired to by the same to look into a murder case a few years old.  The previous PI working on the case has died and Kinsey is hired to take over.  This case involves guns and Kinsey being shot at.  Kinsey hiding behind a copy machine.  Her timing is, of course, impeccable.  In other news her landlord Henry is entertaining (I say that tongue in cheek) his hypochondriac brother from Michigan.  Curiously he strikes up (the brother, William, that is) a little romance with Rosie (the little dive bar proprietress where Kinsey gets an occasional meal).

I hit a little snag with letter "J", J is for Judgement.  I quite enjoyed parts of the case she was working on, though it tended to sag here and there for me.  She is actually called back to California Fidelity to look into a case of fraud.  The company has paid out an insurance claim on a death, but as it turns out the dad guy is alive and well and living in a resort in Mexico.  He was spotted by one of CF's insurance agents.  So Kinsey gets a ticket to Mexico, where she very amusingly jumps from one hotel balcony to another and then on to a third to to a little checking in the room of the fraudster.  On her way back she lands on that same mid-way balcony only to be confronted with a very inebriated resident.  I won't give away how she gets out of that mess.  The mystery is just okay (though I will say the resolution came as a total surprise), but there was an interesting twist in her personal life.  I was under the impression her only family was an aunt who raised her after the death of her parents.  But that died some years ago, too, leaving Kinsey on her own.  Kinsey was under the impression, too, but maybe that is not the case.  Family she never knew she had?  And not even that far from Santa Teresa?!

If it took me ages to get through letter "J", I pretty much inhaled letter "K", K is for Killer.  It's not as though she has not had to deal with murder cases, but this one felt different somehow.  Maybe because the young woman who was the victim happened to be working as a prostitute yet was smart and savvy.  Her death was made to look like a 'normal' death and not murder.  And during the course of Kinsey's investigation she befriends another young woman who is in the same business and a good friend of the victim.  There don't seem to be many 'dead girls' of the type you find so frequently in thrillers and other crime novels.  Much of the crime Kinsey must investigate is more run of the mill.  Maybe Kinsey gets too close to the people she is investigating and sees how too often the bad guys get away with their crimes, but it puts Kinsey to the end of her tether and what happens at the end is a little shocking.  It won't give anything away to say Kinsey is actually tazered, but what happens next was unexpected.  I am ready to pick up "L", L is for Lawless, but I am doing a little catch up with some other books first.

In a little fit of coziness and the desire to pick up a series that I have not visited for far too long I decided to look in on Daisy Dalrymple.  I had picked up and set down To Davy Jones Below more than once.  It has been too long since I read a mystery by Carola Dunn who have very much enjoyed in the past.  Once again I must admit I struggled with this book.  It is number nine out of almost two dozen mysteries featuring Daisy and her hubby DCI Fletcher.  The pair are newly married and off on their honeymoon, which is a working trip for Alec.  They set off for New York City on a steamship and as per Daisy's incurable desire and ability to get involved in some crime or other, once again find themselves embroiled in the deaths of several passengers who fall overboard.  Alec
is seasick for much of the book, so Daisy is left on her own to piece things together.  As much as I like the setting of a ship and a crime that occurs on this--something just didn't quite work for me.  It felt a little twee to be honest.  Too many "jollys" perhaps, the language evoking the period was a little, well, overboard.  And I think the fellow shipmates grated on me.  I am happy they have finally arrived in NY and I hope the next outing will be more to my taste.  Sometimes it is just a matter of getting past one saggy story.

I have already mentioned Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie's debut mystery, The Sunday Philosophy Club.  I enjoyed this with a few reservations.  I love Isabel (and how she likes her quiet and solitude, her music and her crossword puzzles with coffee mornings), and I especially like her cafe-owning niece Cat.  This is series that is not traditional crime fare.  It is more a cozy mystery, but really more just an entertainment--a light novel--that has a dash of mystery to it.  As long as I go into it knowing that, I think I will quite enjoy her next adventure.  This is the sort of mystery that might just be solved by looking at the whole picture and looking it the problem and situation through the lens of philosophy and morality, but the perpetrator might not come to justice as we expect.  But only one book in, I can't say for sure and will see how things pan out in the next book.    

At the moment I am reading the second Ruth Galloway book, The Janus Stone, and am very happy to get back to her saltmarsh world.  I was in the mood for a thriller and saw Clare Mackintosh's I Let You Go turn up on a list of best books for unexpected twists.  The writer, whose list it was, raved about this one, so I pulled it from my stack and am just at the start wondering how the surprises will come.

H is for Homicide, Sue Grafton

After Kinsey's last couple of adventures (misadventures?), I really thought H is for Homicide was going to be comparatively quiet and lowkey.  She does deserve a little downtime.  Just an ordinary run of the mill case, a straightforward California Fidelity insurance claim investigation.  I mean fraud is sort of banal, right?  After the last couple of rounds--practically being blown up by a bomb, losing her garage apartment to an explosion and then having a hit man after her, even a homicide shouldn't put her in too much danger.

To be honest I was thinking that this installment actually sounded a little boring in comparison to her life thus far.  At the opening of the story two things help set the tone.  First, one Gordon Titus has been transferred to the Santa Teresa office of California Fidelity.  He's an efficiency expert and you can probably guess what that means.  He's not going to like how Kinsey, just a contracted agent essentially, operates.  The other morale buster is the recent death, a murder, of one of CF's agents--Parnell Perkins.

This is where the story begins, but it quickly veers off track and it never quite returns until the final pages.  Somehow despite it all Grafton manages to weave it all together seamlessly, and while not everything is quite resolved, she is about to pick up one of the threads in I is for Innocent. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Put the  murder out of your mind.  Accident insurance fraud is not what you would call a very sexy crime.  You know, people who cause an accident and then claim whiplash to get a big payout.  Pretty smarmy really, but also kind of mundane.  And this is what Kinsey is working on at the start of the book  Following quick on the heels of her not at all auspicious meeting with Gordon Titus, Kinsey begins looking into a claim that was flagged as being suspicious. 

Pounding the pavement.  Asking questions, fact checking, going to the library to do research (one of the things I love about these books is the time period where technology is really limited) are things Kinsey is really good at.  She is trying to track down the whereabouts of a woman who has filed an accident claim--Bibianna Diaz.  Bibianna is a force to be reckoned with.  When Kinsey does find her she knows she has to gain her trust to milk her for information and get evidence.

Kinsey has no idea what she is about to get into.  Is it when Bibianna is taken at gunpoint or when both women are booked into jail that the two click?  if I thought this was going to be a boring case for Kinsey, I was wrong.  She spends the bulk of the story holed up with Bibianna in the company of LA gang members who are part of a larger group of criminals working a fraudulent accident claim ring.  They are making thousands of dollars staging fake accidents.  To ensure her cover Kinsey must taker part in the crimes,  and leave it to Kinsey to find she is actually good at it.

Another excellent installment in Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries series.  She never ceases to amaze me.  Kinsey is a hoot.  She cracks me up with the things she does and says.  She is not infallible and she has her shortcomings, but she is such an interesting and likable character.  She has moxie and brains and I think she has become my favorite sleuth.  Onwards to letter "I".

Happy Birthday Kinsey Millhone!

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.

What I'm Reading Now: A Few Notes

Just a little reading update today.  I don't think I've been talking much about what I am reading other than the wonderful Kinsey Millhone books.  I am now up to letter E.  I just start it a couple of days ago, so there is just scene setting so far.  It is Christmastime in Santa Teresa and Kinsey is on her own for the holiday.  She doesn't seem to mind and tucks herself away with a good book for the holiday.  She had started working on a seemingly easy claim job for California Fidelity--the insurance company she used to work for.  She is writing up a report on a fire that occurred in a warehouse.  It all seems pretty straightforward, but you know it is going to end up being complicated (and maybe even deadly).

While I know where I stand with Kinsey and am happy to be in her company, quite settled into the storytelling, loving the character, I have to say I am struggling a little with Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, which is the next B&N Book Club Read (and I need to finish reading by next Wednesday).  Although I am beginning to warm up to the story I have been having a really difficult time connecting with the book.  What do you do when a novel has gotten all kinds of really positive press and accolades and the reviews seem to be all five-stars?  But you feel really tepid about the whole experience? 

The story is perhaps a cautionary tale about what happens when you become the "It" person on social media.  You know how things go viral?  Well, in this story the two characters post a video on YouTube about a statue that appears in NYC--thinking it is just a fun thing to joke about.  But then overnight it just takes off and the whole world is talking about the statues, which have appeared in more than 60 cities.  So I totally get the premise and I even find it fairly appealing, but I guess I just want more "story" or more character development or something.  So here is a story about social media, and I am lamenting reading it--on social media.  The prose is very chatty and maybe a little slangy for my tastes.  As I bailed out on the last book club book, I am going to try and persevere.  It does read quickly and the story is moving along at a clip since there is the suggestion that maybe those statues are "external"--as in alien . . .  As far fetched as that sounds, it actually makes it more interesting to me.  So I keep reaching for it even as I am looking longingly at other books.  

I forgot how good Josephine Tey is--I just finished an Inspector Grant mystery, which was this month's prompt, so I will have more to tell you about that in the next week or so.  I need to get back to my vintage crime novel reading, I guess.  I am also reading Anthony Quinn's Curtain Call which fits the prompt quite nicely, too.  I have read him before and enjoyed his writing and he has several (I think three) books, starting with this one, which are loosely linked.  As I have and want to read the lot of them I decided it was time to get moving on those (how many of these authors who revisit characters and that I 'mean to read' do I have on my shelves all neglected?--Here is one I am getting to anyway).

Speaking of prompts.  My next one is "it was a dark and stormy night" but I am not terribly enthused by it.  It's my own project so I should  not feel guilty about changing it mid-stream, should I?  Maybe I will pick something else.  Some book with the color blue or green in the title.  Or, any ideas?  Throw some ideas out at me.  I don't have a particular book in mind, but I want something fun that would inspire me to go searching my shelves!

I am reading a lot of crime novels at the moment.  I am in the middle of Lou Berney's November Road which I have heard is "the" crime novel of the year.  I am just getting to the part where two disparate characters (the criminal and an unhappy housewife) are about to cross paths and I can't wait as I expect the story will really take off then.  I am enjoying it but I am waiting for that moment that sweeps me away.  Alas, maybe my next prompt needs to be something the calls out for a book decidedly Not a crime novel or mystery!

I think what I really want to reach for but can't seem to squeeze in exactly is Kate Morton's The Clockmaker's Daughter, which I just barely started before I had to pick up my book club book.  I like that one of the plotlines (this is one of those parallel stories story) concerns a young woman who works in an archive and comes across a satchel with a sketchbook in it--there is a story there, right?  And I like that the story set back in time concerns a group of artists.  I am intrigued that one of the narrators seems to be a ghost--well, that is what I am thinking she must be.  I want to pick it up and spend an afternoon sorting through the story and getting into it properly, but the clock is ticking on other reads that need to be finished first.  

I am hoping to carve out some serious reading time this weekend.  I need to find a quiet corner with few distractions.  I feel like life has been really busy lately and it has left me a little worn out, so when I do get down time and sit to relax, I relax myself to sleep!  But we'll see what I can accomplish this weekend.  Happy reading everyone!

B is for Burglar & C is for Corpse

I wrote about Sue Grafton's alphabet mystery, A is for Alibi, but I kind of glossed over B.  Maybe for my own record I might just expand a bit on B but then properly tell you about C is for Corpse.  After a while all the details of the mysteries go a little fuzzy, and I like to have some kind of notation at least of what I read.  Mostly, though, I like learning a bit more about Kinsey with each new book.  Grafton seems to expand just a little about her characters and the sense of place or season with each new book and it is fun to see those details all roll out.  

I think B is for Burglar is my favorite book, mystery-wise, so far.  I do like how Grafton throws in some nice twists and solutions that you don't quite see coming.  And I like how methodical Kinsey is in her detecting work.  I think these early novels were written somewhere in the middle 1980s so technology is pretty limited.  No cell phones, no ipads, no fancy cameras.  Kinsey is lucky if she can ask one of the detectives (mostly Jonah so far who I think we are going to see more of . . .) in the police department to run searches on their very limited databases.  So it is literally pounding the pavement and asking questions, lots of questions, and then noting down information on her index cards and typing up the clues on her portable Smith-Corona.

So B starts out pretty straightforwardly with a job trying to get a signature on a document concerning an inheritance.  Beverly Danziger is annoyed with her sister Elaine Boldt who seems to have gone missing.  Elaine likes to spend part of the year in Florida but has been incommunicado for some time and for Beverly and the others listed on the will, a signature is needed before any money is released.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, Elaine ends up being far more elusive than anyone expected.  Kinsey flies to Florida to check on Elaine but finds a strange woman staying in her apartment claiming Elaine allowed her to sublet the apartment while she goes off traveling.  But Elaine is nowhere to be found.  And when a mysterious fire and a body come into play, it all becomes more complicated than Kinsey expected.  What I like so much about this book are the feisty older women who are Elaine's neighbors both in Santa Teresa and Florida.  When I say both women are "characters" in their own right, you will probably get the picture.  She cracks the case with aplomb but not without managing to get shot in the arm and banged up in the process.

It is during her recovery and recuperation from the Elaine Boldt case that she gets involved with Bobby Callahan in C is for Corpse.  This is a very adept title as corpses kind of abound.  And they play quite important roles in the story, too.  Kinsey is working out in a local gym as part of her rehab when she meets Bobby.  He is also in recovery from a car accident from which a good friend did not survive.  Bobby is sure the accident was not an accident at all and that he was not meant to walk away from it.  He did, but not without a serious brain injury which has left him with mobility problems and worse with a spotty memory.  He tells Kinsey about a small red phone book which is worrying him as he cannot find it.  He asks Kinsey to investigate and try to find who sent him skidding off the road. 

Unfortunately Kinsey does not get far in her searching before Bobby has a seizure while driving and a second crash finishes him off.  Kinsey, being Kinsey, decides as Bobby has paid her retainer fee, dead or not, he is still her client.  So she pushes on with her investigation.  The ending is very suspenseful and more than a little freaky since it takes place in a hospital morgue, a building off on its own and at night when there are not others around.  Unless you count the dead bodies.  And the killer, of course.

Sue Grafton always gets down to business right away in her books.  They are very much of the hardboiled variety and Kinsey is as matter-of-fact as they come.  But with each book I feel like I learn just a little more about her and she becomes just a bit more rounded and interesting.  She has felt flesh and blood since the first book, but now she feels even more human and flawed, yet I would still trust her to be able to take care of business.  Now there are more bits about Kinsey in the books and I feel like I am getting to know her more personally.

I knew she had been raised by an unmarried aunt, but the circumstances surrounding her parents were not clear.  When she was only five her family was on a Sunday outing when a boulder smashed through their windshield.  Both parents were killed and Kinsey was crushed in the backseat and it took hours for her to be rescued.  I am curious about her childhood which she alludes to in this story.  Her aunt sounds quite social and she would take Kinsey on her social calls and tell her to amuse herself, which Kinsey apparently did by snooping around.  No wonder she is so good at her job now.

She is still living in a converted garage, her landlord Henry, although in his 80s is still a very handsome and 'crushable' man.  There is a side story in this book about Henry and a new lady-friend he has acquired.  A woman of questionable intentions that Kinsey has doubts about and for good reason as the story develops.  Kinsey likes to have a glass of wine now and then.  She often pulls out a bottle from her fridge and sits down to work.  And she still hangs out at the local dive, Rosie's.  Rosie is in her 60s, of Hunagarian extraction.  A most excellent cook but bossy and prone to pouting.  She does not warm up easily to strangers.  Kinsey finds her (as do we the readers) completely fascinating.

Oh, most interesting.  Finally a little hint at Kinsey's previous relationships.  It sounds like she was once dumped and once did the dumping.  She was twice married and divorced and not easily convinced now to get into a new relationship.  It's not that she won't under the right circumstances, but she is, I'll say it again, no pushover.  One of her husbands happens to be a jazz pianist named Daniel Wade.  He is now in NYC.  Their marriage was brief but Kinsey recalls it with some fondness and she is not entirely sure if he came back into her life that she would turn him down.  Alas, his musician's ways, despite his talent, just are not conducive to a happy relationship.

And now I am midway through D is for Deadbeat.  It is a little uncanny how often someone will hire Kinsey and then end up being killed or have an accident.  There is some of that going on now, too.  It is Fall in Santa Teresa, too, and boy is it raining there.  Kinsey took a day off (too wet to investigate) to snuggle under a blanket with her book and a glass of wine!  I was beginning to worry her only hobbies were running three miles a day and murder investigations!  I'll be thrilled if I can finish D this weekend but in any case I hope to start E sometime next week.  And as there might be a visit to this month's library sale, I might see if I can find any more used copies to have on hand.  I think I have F waiting in the wings, but as these are quick indulgences it would be good to have a few more on hand!

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

I almost wish Kinsey Millhone was a real person and I could see what she looks like.  See her tiny garage-converted apartment and take a virtual tour of Santa Teresa!  I can imagine her jogging along the beach or shooting the breeze with her clients.  I like to think if she was a real person we might be friends, but I think I prefer to just observe her.  (Though she might make a really interesting dinner party guest!).

Things I have learned about Kinsey so far.  She is in her early thirties and twice divorced.  I have yet to learn anything about her ex-husbands or why the marriages failed.  She doesn't seem to have a special love interest, but she is not averse to a possibly casual relationship.  She began her career as a police recruit, but that didn't quite work out and now she is a private investigator.  She has an office in the California Fidelity Insurance Company building where she used to work but now only occasionally does jobs for. 

She doesn't seem to have any real hobbies.  Her job seems to take up most of her time and fill her thoughts.  She likes to run, but less for fitness or a drive to be healthy, as she will as often follow up her runs with a Big Mac and fries.  Her usual hangout is a bar called Rosie's that sounds a bit of a dive so it doesn't attract tourists which is just fine with her, but Rosie is Hungarian and makes the best meals.  Kinsey calls them "devil-may-care cuisine with a Hungarian twist."

I already mentioned her apartment, which is cramped and small but Kinsey likes cramped and small.  Her car is a little VW filled to the brim, it sounds, with files and law books.  She likes to be able to travel at a moment's notice and keeps a briefcase handy complete with a little automatic pistol.  Her landlord is this eighty-year old author of the most intricate crossword puzzles and a baker extraordinaire.  He actually was formerly a baker in his working-life and will often trade bread for meals at local restaurants.  Kinsey is often a happy recipient of loaves, too.  The two often share curious glances as Henry is a not unattractive much older man, but neither would ever dream of acting upon them.

Oh, and yes, she is working on a case in A is for Alibi, which I greatly enjoyed.  I'm not sure which I like better, the piecing together of the puzzle or reading about Kinsey, and being inside her head.  She has a dry sense of humor and I find that her observations often elicit a very audible guffaw from me.  She is so traditional hardboiled in her detecting style and it is a happy experience to read a hardboiled female detective narrating the story.  Why did I not pick up these books before now?  All the better that I have almost a complete alphabet to make my way through, however, as these are almost like eating candy--you just keep reaching your hand in the bag.

I was almost (though not sure why really) surprised by how nicely complex and layered the mystery Kinsey needed to solve and the way she worked through the problem asking endless questions and traveling to talk to witnesses combing through all the clues with a fine tooth comb.  She is methodical in her working style, a bit wisecracking, fairly fearless and not afraid to ask the hard questions.  She is a tough cookie and a smart one at that. 

In this, her first, case (only first for us, but she has been a PI for a while is the sense you get from the story) she has been asked to investigate the murder of a man by the woman who was accused, charged and sentenced for the crime.  She even served her time in jail, biding time until she got out.  She hires Kinsey to find the real culprit.  Nikki Fife spent eight years for the poisoning death of her husband, a crime she has never admitted to.  It sounds fairly straightforward and even while investigating few people are convinced that Nikki is not to blame.  But nothing is really as it appears and one death morphs into two and then another during the investigation.  The story opens with Kinsey relating how she has just killed someone and how it weighs on her mind.  With that in mind she narrates the case and the story ends with her final report on her investigation.  

Such a thoroughly satisfying detective novel.  I have already read my way well into B and hope to pick up C very soon.  I hope to spend a lot of time with Kinsey in the coming months.  What I like is with each new chapter and now with the second novel a bit more is revealed or fleshed out in Kinsey's character.  And Sue Grafton does such a perfect job of setting the scene and painting the details of Kinsey's world so it all seems so real.  So nice to finally meet you Kinsey Millhone.