2008-04-22 A Curious Anomaly

Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series starring the indomitable Kinsey Milhone tend to fall into one of two themes, either they are all about the crime and we hear very little about Kinsey and her complex family/personal life, or they are all about Kinsey, and the crime is just a vehicle to move the personal angle along.

Here Grafton breaks with tradition. This should fall into an all about Kinsey pattern, as the crime element is weaker than normal and at times unsatisfactory. What saves it is the fact that this book is written about a true event. The body in the quarry story was read by Grafton, and she was curious enough about it to fictionalise it and also use the book as a way of trying to help officers in real life solve the case.

This element gives it a curiosity factor which saves it from what would otherwise be a rather lacklustre performance in the usually excellent Milhone series.