Book Review: "V is for Vengeance"

One of my favorite series of fictional detective stories is Sue Grafton's "alphabet series" of novels featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone. The series began back in the early 1980's with "A is for Alibi" and has proceeded along alphabetically up to the just released "V is for Vengeance."

One of the neat things about this series is that the characters have aged in real time. The series began in the early '80s (1983, I believe), when Kinsey was in her early thirties. This current story takes place in 1988 and Kinsey celebrates (sort of) her 38th birthday in this one. Because these stories are still in the 1980's, there are no cell phones, office computers are rare, there is no Internet. This differs from many series where characters that might have sprung to life in the 1950's and 60's remain forever young while still operating in the 2000's.

I have read all of these stories, A through V, and like any series, some are better than others. Recent stories - "T is for Trespass" and "U is for Undertow" - have been among the very best of the series, however, so Grafton seems to get better with age. The stories are all written in the first person with Kinsey narrating the tale. However, in some of the later books, Grafton has interspersed chapters written in the third person and told from other characters' points of view. This device has served to make the stories better, I believe, and is used once again in "V", and one of the chapters is told in the third person while the character is interacting with Kinsey, which I believe is a first for the series. It is the first time that I can recall another character describing Kinsey.

This story begins innocently enough with Kinsey inadvertently witnessing a shoplifter while she herself is shopping. This leads to murder, interaction with organized crime, a crooked cop, and a rather unusual romantic tale. You also learn a lot about shoplifting and just how big a business it is.

While "V for Vengeance" may not rank as highly as some of the other entries in the series, I grade it a solid B.

Grafton has announced that she will continue the series through the letter Z. That means four more books, with "Z is for Zero" arriving sometime in the late 2010's with Kinsey at age 40. I look forward to each of them.