It’s the holiday season; the one time of the year that being a twice-divorced, independent loner does not work for P.I. Kinsey Millhone. With everyone she’s reasonably close to with their own holiday plans, she needs something as a diversion to ward off the blues. She gets that (and more) with a case that places her career on the line; what started out as a simple look into an industrial arson case for California Fidelity (the insurance company Kinsey used to work for, and who allow her an office space if she does some occasional work for them) has now turned to an accusation that she’s on the take. When $5,000 is deposited in Kinsey’s bank account without her knowledge, a whole lot of people get real interested, and very few of them believe it’s a frame job.
Now Kinsey’s working for herself, trying to find out the who and why before the warrant for her arrest is issued. But with new evidence―and a couple of corpses―surfacing around her, she’s going to have to act quickly to clear her name before she loses her career, her reputation―and quite possibly her life. And if that isn’t enough to keep her busy, her ex-husband, who walked out on her eight years ago, pops back on the radar; surely these events can’t be interconnected?
This was probably the strangest Kinsey book to date; the who, what, where, when and why were weird, and Kinsey spent most of the plot behind the eight-ball. And once again, we have a murderer who is not playing with a full deck. It was also weird that other than Kinsey, none of the usual suspects really made an appearance; no Henry, no Rosie, even Dalton had an extremely brief cameo.
A lot of the book was Kinsey driving around to the same five places, trying to outrun the warrant for her arrest (which is extremely slow in being issued; I don’t know if that because this takes place between December 23rd and January 5th so it’s caught in the Holiday slowdown, or if it’s because someone is slightly rooting for Kinsey), talking to the same dozen people. People who include some of the Cognoscenti of Santa Teresa, all of who Kinsey is continuing to have “piss them seriously off” as the empty spot on her Bingo Card. That is one of the things I adore about Kinsey; her insatiable need to cause people to develop nervous tics after dealing with her. As for ex-husband, I can see why Kinsey put him in the rear view mirror; when he screws her over (something that is apparently his usual modus operandi), I think he’s probably more bothered that it didn’t work than she is that he tried in the first place.
The ending is explosive (in more ways than one), and makes me very eager to read the next book, as I want to see where everything is going. The two things I’m most wondering about is if Kinsey still has her hearing after everything she goes through here, and if she’s going to buy the lottery ticket that her luck entitles her to. It will be the continuing adventures of Kinsey, her air fern (which she hates), her beige VW Bug (which luckily survives the finale. though I don’t think Grafton would risk it to too much danger), her go-to dress, and her vest; the vest that puts her in the company of Yelena Belova.
If you haven’t started the series, pick up “A” is for Alibi and start from there; you won’t regret it.
