This is the second-to-last Kinsey Millhone book that we’ll probably ever get, and that makes me sad.
Eleven years ago, when I was home with an infant and a toddler and living next door to a tiny library, I picked up a ratty paperback copy of A is for Alibi on a whim. And I became obsessed. I read every single one of Sue Grafton’s “alphabet mysteries” that featured this weird, cranky PI named Kinsey Millhone. And I loved them.
I loved Kinsey’s bizarre little universe out in her tiny California town. Terrible things happened that required her attention, and the mysteries were always interesting. But I looked forward to the other parts of the story…what was going on with Henry the landlord? What was Rosie cooking up the street at the bar? How many peanut butter and pickle sandwiches would Kinsey eat?
And now I’ve finished the 25th book, Y is for Yesterday, and can’t believe there’s only going to be one more.
This wasn’t my favorite mystery that Kinsey’s been involved in. But it was still entertaining. Told partly in flashback, we learn about a terrible murder that took place 10 years prior. A high school junior named Sloane was killed because of secrets that she had about some of her classmates, including the location of a sex tape that could send its participants to jail for the assault of a minor.
In the present (which is actually 1989), one of the boys who was sent to jail for his part of the murder has just been released, and his parents are being blackmailed. And so they call up good old Kinsey for advice.
As Kinsey digs into the lives of these bored, rich private school kids who committed several upsetting crimes for no real reason, she becomes rather unsettled, and would prefer to stay out of it. But of course, that’s not how things go for Kinsey.
I didn’t like a single one of the characters involved in the murder and sex tape mystery (except for the murdered girl, unfortunately. She seemed to be the only sensible one of the bunch), but I did enjoy Kinsey and her cohorts living their lives, drinking cheap chardonnay, and eating hard boiled egg sandwiches.
I’m looking forward to the final installment in the series. But I’m also dreading it. I’m really going to miss Kinsey.
