A is for Alibi

Synopsis/blurb........

‘My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I’m thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind . . .’ When Laurence Fife was murdered, few cared. A slick divorce attorney with a reputation for ruthlessness, Fife was also rumoured to be a slippery ladies’ man. Plenty of people in the picturesque Southern California town of Santa Teresa had reason to want him dead. Including, thought the cops, his young and beautiful wife, Nikki. With motive, access and opportunity, Nikki was their number one suspect. The Jury thought so too. Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki Fife hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed her husband. But the trail has gone cold and there is a chilling twist even Kinsey didn’t expect . . . ‘Skilful and ingenious’ Irish Times ‘I love Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone novels . . . you are never disappointed’ Guardian ‘Will keep you awake until the last page has been turned’ Daily Mail

Well having admonished myself for ignoring the female crime writing fraternity for not months, in truth years, I have decided to address that deficiency in my reading. As an aside, I was once browsing a second hand book store and picked up a book - Bleedout - authored by I thought John Brady, on closer examination it was actually written by Joan Brady............so I put it back, why? I can’t really explain. Any way glossing over that example of blatant sexism, we return to Sue Grafton and the first in her Alphabet series starring Kinsey Millhone.

Kinsey is hired by Nikki Fife to uncover who killed her adulterous husband, Laurence. Nikki having just been released from prison after serving eight years for the murder professes her innocence and wants Millhone to dig into the past.

Having had a passing acquaintance with the dead Laurence and a vague recollection of his murder, Kinsey starts looking over the original investigation, discovering there was a second fatality exactly like Fife’s death a short period afterwards. Libby Glass, an accountant who crossed paths with Laurence Fife was poisoned in exactly the same way as the lawyer, though her client was never charged.

Kinsey backtracks into Fife’s personal and business relationships as well as looking at Libby Glass’ surviving family believing that there is an obvious link between the two crimes. Gwen, who was Fife’s first wife and Charlie Scorsoni, Fife’s friend and former business partner are obvious avenues for information as well as Fife’s children with Gwen and one of his rumoured sexual partners who may have held something over him judging by her attitude towards him in the workplace; Sharon Napier.

Fast forward to page 345, a longish book for a first novel and Grafton brings Millhone’s first highlighted investigation to a satisfying conclusion.

And the verdict was........ interesting and enjoyable, albeit a little bit different from the male PIs I have been reading a lot of lately. Whilst Matthew Scudder and Elvis Cole can on occasion be drawn into physical violence and their authors can engage the readers with a bout of fisticuffs, this approach is never really going to work for Kinsey, particularly as Grafton has not gifted her a skill-set involving the martial arts. Instead Millhone uses intelligence, tenacity and a logical approach to her sleuthing. When the inevitable confrontations arise, she doesn’t lack for bravery.

I didn’t really feel a great warmth or affection for our heroine, as yet. I was probably more of an interested bystander watching Millhone’s enquiry progress. Kinsey has a past, with two failed marriages behind her. She lives economically in a small apartment, with apparently no close friends or family. She enjoys sex and alcohol when it’s available, but has no addiction or issues with either. She appears to be alone without being lonely. Definitely someone I would like to read more about, particularly in the hope of discovering more about her past. I’ll be back at some point with B, then probably C and maybe D, but not straight away.

4 stars from 5

I picked up my copy by swapping on the Readitswapit website in exchange for something else.

I do anticipate reading further female written fiction this month. Go me! ( )

I have never read one of these “alphabet” mysteries before and so I thought I’d try them out – starting with A. I was impressed. It is a very good book. Kinsey, a female private investigator, is hired to find out who really murdered Nikki’s husband – a crime for which Nikki went to jail. Kinsey unravels the husband’s life, which is filled mostly with infidelity. She meets the husband’s former law partner and is VERY attracted to him. The ending made sense, but left me wishing Kinsey had filled in a few more details for me. The best part of the book is the time-period-references! It was written in the 1980’s and Kinsey keeps stopping at phone booths and typing up her notes on a typewriter! ( )

I've been reading Sue Grafton for years and decided to go back to the beginning for a reread. I must say I'm enjoying it just as much on the reread as I did the first time around.

Kinsey Millhone is in the tradition of a the hard-boiled private eye. She has the police background and the tough-chick persona. She's a loner with quirky friends and a tragedy in her past. But likeable, very likeable.

There are things you notice that would be different if she were writing this book for a current setting but she wasn't. She was writing it for a 1980's setting. It works very well for that and actually reminds me how much things have changed in such a short time. I find Kinsey to be realistic and engaging. The mystery wasn't the hardest to figure out but it didn't jump out at me from the first page either. We get a lot of background on Kinsey and she seems very 3 dimensional by the end of the book. This is one of the few mystery series that my husband enjoys also. I know I'm going to enjoy my reread of the entire series. ( )

At first, I wasn't all that impressed with A is for Alibi. I didn't see the humor, it seemed to drag on and on without any point, all in all it just seemed blah. Then I got to the last, oh, one-quarter of the book. Oh my goodness! What a thrill ride! Everything that I felt had been pointless or boring before just "clicked," and it all made sense. Plus the author's style of writing seems perfectly suited for the way she wrapped this book up. I was originally thinking of only giving this book 2 stars before I finished it. I've given it 4 because the last part of the book completely redeems and makes it worthwhile to go through the first parts of the book. It also made me want to find out what happens in the next book, B is for Burglar. ( )

I wasn't greatly impressed with this one. In terms of my course, it's nice to have female writers on it, and nice to have a book with a female main character, too -- no march of the dead white men here -- but this didn't blow me away like Raymond Chandler, and nor did I have the compulsion to keep reading that I had with Agatha Christie and Ian Rankin. Obviously, the quality doesn't matter in terms of my course, but damned if I know what points are to be made, at this stage!

I never really believed in any of the characters, not even Kinsey. It was nice that she was given some background detail -- the running, etc -- but at the same time, I didn't feel her to be that much of a character, and didn't really buy the relationship between her and Charlie, that a professional would get involved in that without being able to strike him off as a suspect. Honestly, that a professional would get involved with him at all while on a case that involves him. I thought the characters of Nikki and her son were interesting, and kinda wished there'd been more of her.

Didn't find the plot that shocking or difficult to guess, and if it wasn't for my course, and for the fact that I needed something mindless and easy today, I might've skim-read the rest and not really bothered, once I got about a third of the way through without any real interest. ( )