Started: June 11th
Finished:June 17th
Pages: 437
After this one, there are only 4 books left before Kinsey Millhone retires. Presumably at least. Who knows what happens after "Z"? But in the meantime, Sue Grafton made some wiser choices than Sara Paretsky for her long-running "alphabet" series. Most notably, Grafton has frozen Kinsey in time. While the rest of us meander through the decades, only 6 years have passed in Santa Theresa. "V" takes place in 1988, as Kinsey is about to turn 38 years old.
But for all that Kinsey detects the old-fashioned way, sans internet background searches or gps tracking devices, Kinsey has changed over the course of 22 books. She's still a misfit who owns a single disreputable dress, and she still cuts her own hair with nail scissors. But she's hardly a loner anymore. She's collected a family. Two of them in fact: the aged but spritely family of her landlord, complete with his hypochondriac brother and his curmudgeonly Hungarian wife Rosie, and her own estranged family who show up intermittently when convenient for plot purposes.
But the biggest change is that Kinsey is now notably funnier. It's been quite a while since I read "A", but I don't remember quite the string of sardonic humour from start to finish back at then.
All that being said, there is nothing really notable about "V". It's not a high point of the series (Q and S were both quite interesting). Just a good read, competently executed.
i agree that this series is much better than the Sue Grafton one. I like hearing about the food at Rosie's. I do not like Chardonnay either. The other murder mystery series I really enjoy is Anne Perry. I prefer the Hester Monk to the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, but I do like them both. I just finished "Acceptable Loss" which is the 17th in this series and it was astonishingly good. Maybe because he is more of a policeman on the beat it is easier to keep the series fresh, but this one deal with child pornography and the definition of love and loyalty. It made me cry and kept me riveted until the end with believable - flawed but believable characters. In that way it reminds me of the Kinsey series. As Michelle has said, the Grafton series has characters and situations that are just too hard to believe are true.
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