V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton
Kinsey Millhone is at is again. She’s investigating one crime and gets pulled into a whole world of wrongdoing. But that’s life for a PI in 1988.
That’s the best thing about this series, when Grafton started writing in 1982 it was a contemporary series. She structured Kinsey’s cases to take place every month or two so while twenty-nine years have passed for our readers only six have gone by for her main character. There is something refreshing about phone books being prime sources of information and having a spare rotary dial telephone in your closet. The book is slower paced than many contemporary mysteries, especially since a lot of research is done at the library and city centers which are closed on weekends. Computers are just starting to come on the scene; carbon paper is still used by Kinsey on a regular basis when writing reports.
This is a good choice if you’re looking for a mystery that is interesting and a story line that fills you in on the minute to minute activity of a PIs day. Grafton is also great at taking unrelated stories and not filling you in on all the ways they are interconnected until the very end. I listened to this one while cleaning up after the holiday madness and if your mind wanders or you miss a minute or two you’re okay. It’s a relaxing listen that doesn’t require your full attention to remain intriguing.
