Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Sue Grafton and "W is for Wasted" (No Spoilers)

Since the publication of "A is for Alibi" in 1982, Sue Grafton has been one of my favorite authors and her "Alphabet Series" of mystery novels featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone have been on my "can't miss" list of reading pleasures.

Last night, Sue Grafton was the guest speaker at the Drue Heinz Lecture Series at the Carnegie Music Hall, and it was a real treat to be able to hear her speak.  She was very candid about her life story, which has some parallels with Kinsey's, as it happens.  She gave her lecture by using 3x5 inch index cards for her notes, and she confessed to owning an all-purpose black dress (readers will know what I mean!).   She was humorous and self-deprecating, and very entertaining.  It was not a let down to finally "meet" someone that I have followed and enjoyed for over thirty years.

With the recent publication of "W is for Wasted", there are now only three Kinsey Millhone novels to be written, and Grafton promises that the final one, "Z is for Zero" is on track for publication in 2019.

Now, as for "W is for Wasted", I just finished reading it last week, and here is how the story begins:

"Two dead men changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue."

Kind of grabs you right there, doesn't it?

In this one, Kinsey does experience a life changing event, meets up once again with some members of her family, and gets involved with another PI's case.  As you often do in a Grafton/Millhone novel, you will learn a lot about a subject that is central to the storyline, in the case of "W", that topic is the Homeless.

As she has done in recent stories in the series, Grafton moves away form Kinsey's first person telling of the story, and writes part of it in the third person from another character's viewpoint, a device that I nave really come to enjoy in the Kinsey Millhone series.

Another good one, and it makes me both sad and excited to think that this terrific series will be coming to an end in the not-so-distant future.

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