L is for Lawless

Oooohhh Yaaaaahhh..... Back in the saddle with Kinsey. I don't know if it is my extended absence from the series or the writing, but this is a goodie! Really grass roots crime stuff coupled with Kinsey attitude and penuche for getting into a big ass mess. I do love the whole retro feel of these stories. Can anyone remember the last time an "imprint" of a credit card was taken? Okay, I shouldn't talk since that did happen to me once on my recent trip to Vegas but in my home environment, those machines went the way of the Dodo bird a good 10 years ago. Grafton has a wonderful way with diving deep into the details without making the whole deluge of information the reader is subjected to coming across as a sweeping influx of 'blah'.

An show more excellent mystery, an wonderful recipe for disaster and a rather interesting lesson about how far does one take one's "good neighborly" intentions to heart. 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.



This started out slow then picked up speed at a rapid pace. There was so much going on, plots under plots - lies upon lies. I loved it. Helen was hysterical. My favourite scene: “Freida’s my neighbor. She lives two doors down with her friend, Minnie Paxton, but they’re out of town right now. Hasn’t anyone ever said, but I think them two are sweet on each other. Anyway, we had us a rash of burglaries about four months back. That’s what they call them, a ‘rash,’ like somebody caught a disease. Two nice policemen come down to the neighborhood and told us about self-defense. Minnie learned to kick out real hard sideways, but Freida fell flat on her back when she tried it.”
Ray fixed me with a look, but I couldn’t read the contents. Probably simple despair at the banality of their exchange. Gilbert laughed. “Jesus, I’d like to seen that. How old is this old bag?”
“Let’s see now. I believe Freida’s thirty-one. Minnie’s two years younger and she’s in much better shape. Freida cracked her tailbone and she got mad. Whoo! Said there had to be a better way to fight crime than tryin’ to kick some fella in the kneecap.”
Gilbert shook his head with skepticism. “I don’t know. Bust a guy’s kneecap, that can really hurt,” he said.
“Well, yes,” Helen said, “but first you’d have to get close enough to kick, which isn’t always easy. And then my balance is not that good.”
“Freida’s balance ain’t good, either, from what you said. So what’d she suggest?”
“She suggested she make us each a rack and bolt it onto the bottom of the table, where we could keep a loaded shotgun about like this.” Helen turned slightly sideways as she rose to her feet. She took a long step away from the table, pulling up a twelve-gauge side-by-side shotgun with twenty-six-inch barrels. She pinned the butt stock between her forearm and her side, letting the butt stock rest on her right hip for support.
The four of us stared at her, riveted by the sight of a gun that unwieldy in the hands of someone who, a nanosecond before, seemed so harmless and out of it. The effect, unfortunately, was undercut by the realities of age. Because of her poor eyesight, she was aiming at the window frame instead of Gilbert, a fact not lost on him. He made a face, saying, “Whoa! You better put that gun away.” “You better put that gun away before I blow you to kingdom come,” she said. She backed up against the wall, all business, except for the problem with her aim, which was considerable.

Grafton, Sue. "L" is for Lawless: A Kinsey Millhone Novel (pp. 283-284). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition. and Freida rocks. I rose when he did and buttoned my blazer for warmth. “What about your mother? I don’t think she should be left here alone.”
She was startled by the mere suggestion. “Oh, no. I won’t stay here by myself,” she said emphatically. “Not with that fella on the loose. What if he come back?”
“Fine. We’ll take you with us. You can wait in the car while we go about our business.”
“And just set there?”
“Why not?”
“Well, I might set, but not unarmed.”
“Ma, I’m not going to let you sit in the car with a loaded shotgun. Cops would come by and think we’re robbing the place.”
“I have a baseball bat. That was Freida’s idea. She bought a Louisville Slugger and hid it under my bed.”
“Jesus, this Freida’s a regular artilleryman.”
“Artilleryperson,” his mother corrected smartly.
“Get your coat,” he said.

Grafton, Sue. "L" is for Lawless: A Kinsey Millhone Novel (p. 305). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition. Helen, Freida - totally badass. I can't believe Ray just abandons Kinsey. And Laura is a bitch. Knocking her out and leaving her in the middle of a cemetery was pretty rough - I mean jeez, she's literally given up a week of her time to help you out - the least you could do was not belt her.

I was sad that Kinsey missed most of the wedding prep. I like "the sibs".



4.5 stars. show less

Kinsey continues to get herself into the damnedest dilemmas. In this one she follows an impulse and a suspect (in a case she isn't being paid for) and ends up more or less stranded in the company of some pretty unsavory ex-cons who are searching for the remains of a 40-year-old heist. Fun, if farfetched. Extra points for a daft little old lady with a baseball bat.

A very odd Grafton indeed. Kinsey agrees to do a small favor for Henry, and ends up in a keystone cops chase across at least four states in the company of the saddest bunch of cons and ex-cons she's ever met. There is one really, really bad guy named Gilbert, and a crafty 85-year old grandma named Helen, but basically Kinsey is facilitator to a bunch of bank robbers and an almost comically dysfunctional family. Almost as an aside, Kinsey makes contact with her cousin Tasha, and Rosie and William marry, in a surprisingly tender ceremony quite at odds with the rest of the book.

When the clues came together, I was screaming at the characters to look at what was in front of them. Really! It's not often that I can see the answer pages before show more Kinsey can, but this was blatant. It made me a bit cranky, as you can tell. show less

I really enjoyed the comic caper style of this episode in the Kinsey Millhone series. The beginning was a good build-up, but not near as much fun as the end. I could understand Kinsey's appeal to some of the characters. Her instant attraction (family-style) made the plotline even more humorous. I hated the character, Laura, but enjoyed Kinsey's sister-style bantering with her. The mystery was more of a treasure hunt, but the true treasure was the character Helen (aka Hell on Wheels). She reminds me a lot of my grandmother and I found myself laughing out loud at moments. This is definitely a character-driven story and I enjoyed the characters in the second-half of the story.

Kinsey is technically on vacation in this book, but of course she can’t help but get caught up in an investigation. Her landlord and friend Henry asks for a favor as his brother’s wedding to Rosie approaches. Kinsey helps him out by looking into the question of a friend’s military history. Instead of finding a simple answer Kinsey finds herself on a cross country trip to follow some missing money and uncover the answer to a 40-year-old bank robbery.

My favorite bits were meeting a few of Henry’s siblings, Kinsey’s turn as an undercover hotel maid and a sweet-as-pie Granny with a few hidden talents. I also loved that the true focus of this one is family. Everyone from the criminals to Henry and Kinsey herself are dealing with show more the question of what makes you family. Is it blood or loyalty and do you get to choose your family?

BOTTOM LINE: Like all the alphabet mysteries, this one was a quick read and an entertaining palette cleanser. I’ll keep working my way through the series whenever I need a break from my regular reading material. show less

A better title for this book should be Kinsey and her misadventures with the Clampetts. Even though this book is one big Murphy’s Law event for Kinsey, I still liked it. When main characters can’t seem to catch a break in a book until the very end, I usually get very annoyed but not so with L is for Lawless. I give the credit to Sue Grafton for giving this book a more light-hearted feel to some of the other books and Grafton didn’t allow Kinsey never to catch a break even in the end.

This book’s story is a jigsaw puzzle which each piece slowly bringing the story full circle. It didn’t feel like one of Kinsey’s normal cases because she had no adversary to chase. The story is wrapped totally around Kinsey’s sense of show more curiosity and desire to know the truth. The Rawsons are not the best supporting characters but Grafton made it all work and kept me engaged in the answers just as much as Kinsey.

If there was one thing I didn’t like about the book it was the split personality Kinsey has to family dynamics. She seemed to enjoy being stuck with the Rawsons and observing their antics while totally being determined not to interact with her own family. Not sure why she was this way, but I just couldn’t understand it show less