S is for Silence

A solid entry in the series, and, surprisingly, more standalone than most. There's no series backstory required, just a few inconsequential references to Henry the landlord and Dietz the occasional love interest. A first-time reader would have no trouble following the story. They might confuse all those detailed observations about people and places as clues or red herrings in some kind of Knives Out puzzle, but that's true of all of the books.

A first-time reader would miss how radical it is to have chapters that are not first-person Kinsey Millhone. Exactly how these chapters come to be in what until now has been one long diary is unclear, but they serve a useful narrative function. This is a cold case involving the unexplained show more disappearance 34 years ago in 1953 of Violet Sullivan. None of the chapters give clues to what happened to Violet, and none are from Violet's perspective. Instead, these chapters reveal the mixture of good and bad in everyone and the complexity of their interrelationships.

There are two weaknesses in my mind. First, the resolution of what happened and who was responsible seems almost like an appendix entry, mostly irrelevant, picked using eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Second, yet again, the last chapter has Kinsey in mortal danger, in a scene very close to a previous book. show less

First Line: When Liza Mellincamp thinks about the last time she ever saw Violet Sullivan, what comes most vividly to mind is the color of Violet's Japanese silk kimono, a shade of blue that Liza later learned was called "cerulean," a word that wasn't even in her vocabulary when she was fourteen years old.

On Saturday, July 4, 1953, most people in Serena Station, California, planned to spend at least part of their evening watching the fireworks display. Violet Sullivan was not one of them. She made arrangements for her usual babysitter, got dressed up, loaded her three-month-old Pomeranian puppy into her purse, and drove off in a cloud of dust in her brand-new Bel Air. She never came back.

Although they did search for her, most people show more assumed that the vivacious Violet had run off with the latest man who'd caught her fancy. Trouble is, she left a young daughter behind who grew up with a lot of problems due to her mother's disappearance. Reluctantly, Kinsey Millhone agrees to work for Daisy, even though she privately thinks she's not going to get anywhere with the 34-year-old cold case.

Of course we know that once Kinsey starts investigating, she's going to get somewhere. Grafton veers away from Kinsey's usual first person narrative to intersperse flashbacks from the various people in town who knew the missing woman. As the story progresses, the reader begins to understand that all these people have their own reasons for wanting Violet dead.

Hopefully I won't be tarred and feathered by the legions of Millhone fans when I say that previously the only book in the series I'd read was A is for Alibi. For some reason that I can't remember, Kinsey and I didn't really hit it off, but I'm happy to say that I appreciate her a lot more now that I've read S is for Silence. Did I feel as though I was missing a lot of detail, not having read B through R? No. I fell right in step with her as she began digging away at the facts in this case.

The flashbacks populated the town for me and gave me a real sense of the way Violet interacted with everyone. Without those glimpses into 1953, the story would have been skeletal indeed. As it was, I became quite caught up in the book and its characters. I was able to narrow down the field of those who wished Violet ill, but never got around to choosing my chief suspect.

Many times in reading crime fiction, it's not just about whodunit. Sometimes the how and the why are even more important, and once in a while the characters make a reader forget everything else. Where S is for Silence is concerned, the who led to the how and then to the why, and then I just concentrated on a private investigator who doesn't know how to quit... and the daughter, abandoned so long ago, who deserved truth and justice. show less

I love Kinsey Millhone. But she's not everyone's cup of tea. I started reading the Alphabet series a few years ago - I think at the time it was up to O is for Outlaw. The idea of a mystery series each title beginning with a new letter amused me. I don't know why. I don't think it's particularly original. At least - I've seen a few others since. At the time though it was new to me and it just struck me as perfect. I flew through the series. Kinsey is riveting. She's brash and harsh and charming. She's fierce and flawed. She gets scared. She holds her own. She pushes herself to run often and tackles cases without judgement and with an open mind. Rosie and Henry are brilliant and I love the little family she builds around her.

But Kinsey show more Millhone isn't Jack Reacher - her speed is more Tracy Crosswhite. [book:My Sister's Grave|22341263] Her cases aren't full of action and high speed chases - they're slowly nitpicking away until something clicks into place. She writes down all her thoughts and places her facts and ideas on 3x5 index cards - which she often shuffles and rearranges to help her solve her case. And I love it. Kinsey Millhone is great - but she's not for everyone.

For some reason I've seen reviewers compare this to Stephanie Plum - I don't know why - this is absolutely NOTHING like that. Stephanie Plum is a very different character and an extremely different type of book. That's more fluff. Kinsey Millhone is more procedural mysteries. And this series isn't current - it was first published in the 80's - there's not really technology. Messages were relayed by calling the landlines. Paper files were still the main form of storage. Not everyone will enjoy reading this. But if you like your mysteries to be more like procedurals with a determined and fierce character - Kinsey Millhone is for you.



For the most part I enjoyed this. And then there was the ending. I didn't get it. It made no real sense. Was he sleeping with her? Why did he kill her? There was no real motive. Sure he got her the dog but all the other guys she was sleeping with had way more motive than Tom Padgett. Why did she steal the jewels from her mum? Were they found in the car? And the extra money she borrowed? Where was she headed? Was she leaving? By herself? There was just lots of loose ends. Too many loose ends to rate better than 3.5 stars.



3.5 stars. show less

Review: S is For Silence by Sue Grafton.

This is one of the more pleasing mystery books in the series. Grafton employs an updated different style in strategies that is used more by other authors today. I liked the concept of the protagonist taking on a “cold case” and the use of flashbacks developing a new chapter simply taking place in the past, than moving on establishing the cold case characters to come alive as Kinsey, the private-eye who investigates the future timeline of 1987 to the past of 1953 where the disappearance timeline started. Sue Grafton made the story wisely intriguing for the reader.

Grafton tells part of her story in first person, through Kinsey eyes, and the rest of the chapters are the flashbacks of 1953. I show more think going back and forth, as over a timeline, gave the story more perspective, the cast of characters more structure and believability and an interesting ploy to follow.

It’s a story about Daisy Sullivan seeking help from Kinsey to uncover her mother’s past and find out if she could still be alive. Violet Sullivan had been missing for thirty-four years. Daisy needed some closure and she was always curious why her mother left her behind at a very young age. Her mother, Violet Sullivan was a beautiful fun-loving woman, but she was also considered the town trollop. However, Daisy still wanted to know one way or another where or what happened to her mother even if it pointed a finger at her father.

Kinsey uncovered many puzzle pieces about the past and present that she laid out and maneuvered to make every piece fit together which pointed fingers at a few people still living in the small town of Serena Station where her mother lived and where Daisy was born. This was an interesting mystery and a fast pace read. show less

The note at the front re the artistic license taken with road layouts and house positions made me laugh as I imagined a big pile of letters starting “did you know...” or “ I’d like to point out that...”.
I will have to stop reading these before I start a Maccas habit! These books are like an advert for quarter pounders, KM will have arteries that make her doctors weep.

The story is yet again a completely different format - this series has been great for not being stale. KM is looking into an ancient cold case, and the book style changed quite dramatically with the timeline going back and forth a little. I liked it, and felt I got to know Violet as a person much more as a result.

Finally! Sue Grafton is back on track with her long, long, loooooong-running Kinsey Millhone series. After a string of disappointing entries, in S is for Silence Grafton jettisons the now-over-developed backstory tropes that have been weighing her down (e.g. all the old people love affairs) and gets back down to the roots of an old missing persons case -- i.e. a small town's resident hussy -- that's full of filthy, gossipy detail. The flashbacks to the 1950s work very well. Recommended.

I was extremely disappointed in the end of this book. In fact, it was so very out of keeping with the rest of Grafton's work that the next time I'm in a brick-and-mortar store, I intend to pick up a print copy and check to see if the ebook I read didn't leave out something important. There was no explanation as to how the murder was accomplished, or why. The reader was given no satisfaction at all. I started reading "T" is for Trespass, but if this book is typical of what Grafton is turning in now, it will be the last time I read anything of hers.