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I can never quite decide whether Sue Grafton has dug herself into the biggest writing hole of all time with her series featuring Californian PI Kinsey Millhone. Once you announce you're going to feature every letter of the alphabet, there's not a very apparent escape route out of there without its looking like you wimped out. And Grafton definitely hasn't wimped out. She's up to T with the faint gleam of light at the end of the tunnel (which we must hope isn't an oncoming train!) I read the series fairly religiously until about I or J, and have dipped in ever since. It's one I admire a lot, but its long-running nature means that it creaks at the seams periodically. Grafton decided at the start that Kinsey would hardly age at all over the course of the series, so we're now up to December 1987. Only the lack of mobile phones, and a sceptical comment from Kinsey doubting that home computers will ever catch on betrays the period. But there's the ongoing problem that there's never been enough time in that tight timeline for Kinsey's character to progress an awful lot . . . She's selfish, likes her own space, can't do relationships, doesn't like exercise, enjoys her junk food. And there's more of that here. Oddly enough, landlord Henry, my favourite character in the books, seems to move on more than Kinsey does. This time out he has a lady friend – and it's not all love and roses! After Kinsey's trip out into the sticks in S IS FOR SILENCE, the new book is much closer to home – much of the action takes place in Kinsey's apartment and the adjoining houses. And it's one of those topics that is guaranteed to make readers shift uncomfortably in their seats, as the book deals with the abuse of elderly and infirm people. Gus Vronsky, who is Kinsey and Henry's next-door neighbour, is a cantankerous old so-and-so. A fall leaves him needing home care, so his niece Melanie, who lives in New York, makes a flying visit and arranges for a nurse to come in. Solana Rojas seems like the answer to all their prayers – except there's more to her than meets the eye. I had great hopes of the Solana plot which Grafton doesn't quite pull off. She's certainly a frightening character, but the book never totally delivers on the promised menace. Unforgivably, Grafton perpetrates the clumsy 'had I but known' approach far too often. And it's unforgivable because she's too good a writer to need that artificial talking up of the action. That said, I devoured the book. As our American friends say, go figure.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, April 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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