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V IS FOR VENGEANCE (AUDIO)
by Sue Grafton, read by Judy Kay
Random House Audio, November 2011
Unabridged pages
$45.00
ISBN: 0307704254


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

As the Kinsey Millhone series snakes its way toward the end of the alphabet, the private investigator is only a tad older—she turns thirty-eight in this volume--and it's still the 1980s. But Grafton's writing skills have matured enormously over the past two decades, and she pulls a lot of what she has learned about writing as a craft together here in V IS FOR VENGEANCE.

A few letters back, Grafton started moving around in time and expanding her plots, with mixed results. In V, she nails the latter and sews up at the end what appear to be several unrelated stories. To go into some of them would give away the plot unnecessarily. The main story line involves Kinsey's spotting a shoplifter cramming silk pajamas into a shopping bag. Ever the dutiful citizen, Kinsey alerts the sales clerk, and the thief is arrested. Not surprisingly, she turns out to be wearing booster gear and to have a long rap sheet. A few days later, she commits suicide by jumping off a local bridge into a ravine.

In a somewhat ironic twist, shoplifter Audrey's fiancé, Marvin, hires Kinsey to clear his beloved's name. Marvin simply can't reconcile the idea that the vivacious and financially well-off saleswoman he has come to love might be part of an international theft ring that steals everything from high-end clothing to baby formula to sell at local swap meets, cooperating stores, and in foreign markets. It also seems illogical that someone would take a fatal plunge just as she was about to meet with a realtor to look at their new dream home. Marvin would have forgiven her anything.

The second narrative involves a loan shark by the name of Lorenzo Dante, Jr., known simply as Dante. Aside from the usual high-interest loans, Dante buys jewelry, which is how he meets Nora, a member of the Santa Teresa country club set who has discovered that her husband is cheating on her with his secretary. Nora decides to raise some cash, sells Dante some of her jewelry, and finds herself drawn to this handsome and strangely tender mobster. Nora and Dante are two of the more complexly drawn characters in Grafton's work.

The third strand involves Pinky, a ne'er-do-well parolee, for whom Kinsey has an inexplicable soft spot. She lends him money to get his wife's engagement ring out of hock, and before long, he is back asking for additional favors that almost cost Kinsey her life. Her involvement with Pinky makes little sense, and though he ties into the plot eventually, he is the weakest link.

Grafton has done well to get most of the "sibs"—mainly, Henry—out of the picture on a visit to an ailing sister. How many more hot biscuits can we take? The jokes about bad Hungarian food and rank white wine at Rosie's have run their course as well, and it's time for the Board of Health to close the place down. Brother William has unaccountably taken to attending funerals. Grafton, I fear, is guilty of a small heist of her own: She has borrowed Granny Mazer from Janet Evanovich.

The flaws, however, are minor, and the improvements are truly impressive. Grafton has deepened her understanding of character and plotting and has shed many of the repetitive crutches of early volumes. She brings her various narratives together in a satisfying climax.

Judy Kaye is more than a match for the new complexities of Grafton's work. She has been the voice of Kinsey for many volumes and has gone back and re-recorded earlier titles in abridged formats. She is clearly Grafton's choice, and a best-seller of this magnitude probably has a large say in this matter. A Tony Award winner for Phantom of the Opera and a nominee for two other musicals, Kaye is a versatile performer.

Her Kinsey is professional, wry, and a bit soft-hearted. Kaye's delivery can be a bit deadpan as when Kinsey notes that the gift for her 38th birthday is a punch in the face and a broken nose. Pinky is twangy and a bit snively. Nora sounds sophisticated and shrewd. Dante speaks with careful control. It is a superb performance with perfect pace for maximum enjoyment.

In a way, it is bittersweet that Grafton's art is maturing so marvelously just as the alphabet is coming to a close. One can only hope that, like the lingerie that is stolen in this novel, titles can also come in double A.

§ Karla Jay is a legally blind audio book addict, who lives in New York City, where she is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Pace University.

Reviewed by Karla Jay, December 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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