50 Book Challenge: book 30
A is for Alibi – Sue Grafton
Having read B is for Burglar because it was sitting in the local library crime section singing its siren song it was time to go back to basics and catch up on the first volume of the adventures of California-based PI Kinsey Millhone. And was I disappointed? Not in the least. In fact I’ve already got C is for Corpse lined up and ready to read and have talked partner-in-crime Mr Random into reading them as well.
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In this introductory story Kinsey’s asked to re-investigate an eight-year-old murder after the person convicted for it is released from prison. She maintains her innocence and wants to find out who the culprit really was. This leads Kinsey into a web of blind alleys, misdirection, misinformation and downright dangerous entanglements that leave you wondering whether she will ever be able to find out the truth – or escape unharmed.
This has got a lot of nice touches. I like the pacing of these stories that has the first half filled with mundane, run-of-the-mill inquiry work and the tension seriously ratcheted up in the second. The author had me believing in at least three upcoming plot twists that somehow never materialised. The MO of the killer is cunning in the extreme. I didn’t have a clue what was actually coming and, as is usually the case with me, I was impressed to see the heroine put in serious physical and emotional danger. I liked the ending, no, dammit, I liked the entire book and am buoyed up in my conviction that this is going to be a series well worth reading.