CBR Bingo Square: Relation”ship” (Fiercely independent PI Kinsey Millhone has to allow fiercely protective PI Robert Dietz be her bodyguard)
I read a bunch of the ‘Alphabet Mystery’ series in my teens, when there was somehow time to read everything, and I would stock up on library books rather than booze for staying up all night on New Year’s Eve. They star, and are usually narrated by, Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone, a young-ish woman in California. She and Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski (1982-2022) were probably my first introductions to the adult American crime genre (as opposed to the eternally late-teens, eternally cheerful Nancy Drew), well before I realised that their toughness and cockiness and essentially closed-off natures are a refraction of private dicks Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.
“Why does everybody assume women are so nurturing? My maternal instincts were extinguished by my Betsy Wetsy doll. Every time she peed in her little flannel didies, I could feel my temper climb. I quit feeding her and that cured it, but it did make me wonder, even as a child, how suited I was for motherhood.” (p. 79)
I enjoyed the mystery aspect of the Millhone novels, absolutely (it wasn’t Agatha Christie,* whom I was also devouring at the time), but it was the setting that enthralled me, as Kinsey ran and stalked and drove and fucked through a thrilling world of gunfights and car chases, sleazy motels and trailer parks, palm trees and desert cities and the Pacific Ocean and the glamorous but seedy proximity to Los Angeles. I remembered G is for Gumshoe as I began it; I remembered Kinsey’s tiny new apartment, and her typewriter, and Robert Dietz, but that’s about it. The thing about Kinsey is that she is not just about the solving mysteries and getting blown up and chased down–she is also about the adulting. She carries a typewriter around to type up her notes and her bills, and she has an office with files and folders, and a whole grown-up routine and general air of competence which to be honest I still aspire to.
In G is for Gumshoe her routine, and her privacy, are disrupted by Robert Dietz, a former PI-turned-bodyguard who is supposed to protect her from a hitman. It’s hard for Kinsey to let anyone into her space and her life–she is, or likes to consider herself, a lone wolf-type, but it’s also hard for her to ignore the sparks that fly between her and Dietz, who is, well, quite fit. Kinsey is a tomboyish type (she owns one dress, and has to have a friend do her makeup for a gala) who frankly enjoys sex, which is refreshing. I like their relationship, actually–they understand each other very well, which also means understanding that this is a problem for them, despite their chemistry.
“I was grateful when Dietz finally unlocked the door and let us in. In the backseat of the Mercedes, he’d placed his hand against mine, our little fingers touching in a way that made me feel my whole left side had been magnetised.” (p. 223)
Amid all the UST and dodging assassins, Kinsey has been hired to track down the frail Irene Gersch’s mother, which leads her to figuring out some dark family secrets and unravelling her client’s childhood trauma. (*Which is a lot like the setup for a certain Agatha Christie Miss Marple novel).
It was a fun revisit; a lot is amusingly eighties: there are shoulder pads and jump suits, the research involves microfiches and visiting various bureaus instead of Google, the settings are interesting–as well as Kinsey’s fictional hometown of Santa Teresa there’s the real Slab City, which I spent a long time exploring via Instagram and Google Maps–and the hitman is genuinely chilling. The mystery doesn’t quite hang together, I think, and there’s more coincidence than the Detection Club would allow, but I tend to read crime novels for the vibes rather than the plot. There’s also, unfortunately, occasional casual racism and fatphobia. I’m having to read the books for a research project–it’ll be interesting to see if the later ones further down the alphabet manage to leave these behind.
