Book Review: K is for Killer

K is for Killer brings us more of what we love about Sue Grafton's heroine, Kinsey Milhone. Kinsey is dogged; losing track of time as she rearranges and ponders the facts on her famous index cards. She is determined; even completely rearranging her sleep schedule so that she can catch up with the people that she needs to talk to. She is emotional and compassionate; crying for lost friends and helping whenever she can. But she is also not completely benevolent, which is probably the biggest reason that we love her. She hangs out in yet another shady nightspot drinking beer on the job, and she must resist the temptation to sleep with yet another hunky-but-married cop. In a fit of rage, she tattles on her enemy at just the wrong moment, later forced to confess to Lt. Dolan. And as always, Kinsey is never above lying, stealing, snooping, or sneaking in and out of places that she doesn't belong. All in a days work.

But this installment of Grafton's popular series leaves a lot of issues unattended to as well. Its not that I'm unsatisfied with the way things turn out, but too many ongoing, b-plot items are hardly mentioned at all. Instead of developing the relationship between the Hungarian bar owner and the landlord's brother, it is completely left out. In fact, Kinsey manages to spend almost no time at all in her favorite haunt this time around. Instead of developing the special friendship between Kinsey and Henry, he is out of town with very little explanation and doesn't figure into the story at all. There isn't even a scene featuring his return and reaction to recent events, a tool that Grafton often uses to summarize things and help Kinsey draw new conclusions. This new case has Kinsey up all night and sleeping all day, so she has very little time to pursue a relationship with her new found extended family members, although perhaps she prefers it that way.

Most importantly, Kinsey has always been far from monogamous, yet with all due respect to the one that she had to shoot and kill, I'm still waiting for one of her past lovers to return and wreak havoc in her life. There is definitely some chemistry between Kinsey and the vice cop on this case, but the relationship is not developed. It's a shame, since Ms. Grafton is masterful at building sexual tension without actually describing it.

In general, the author would do well to remember that Kinsey's homicide cases would be much more engaging and suspenseful if she spent more time on her background and less time describing each outfit, meal, and neighborhood in detail (all-purpose dress and pickle sandwiches notwithstanding. No reader can be expected to identify with a quirkless heroine.). Everyone loves a good murder mystery, and Grafton certainly holds her own, but they are a dime a dozen. Grafton's well designed plots can keep us awake reading for a single night, but its Kinsey's personality and our vested interest in what happens to her that compel us to read the books in order and eagerly anticipate each new case. Without Henry, Rosie, Kinsey's spicy love life, and the all-purpose dress, the books would each stand alone, but that would have an adverse effect on readership, to be sure. The books would sit on the shelves in the mystery section collecting dust.

The ending of K is for Killer is formulaic in many respects, yet a bit deeper than we're used to. As usual, it finds our heroine in a dark chamber, dodging her armed culprit in a fight for her life. But this killer is not armed with a gun, or even a knife, and the finale has a twist that amounts to one of the author's more creative moments in the series thus far.

When a reader is as thoroughly wrapped in a series as I am in this one, its impossible not to speculate about the future. With regard to technology, fashion, and vernacular language, A is for Alibi is already quite dated since it was published almost 20 years ago. I'm up through K now, and I have yet to see Kinsey use the internet or a cell phone. Perhaps she will embrace these things for the useful tools that they are, but something tells me that she may also dig her heels in and insist on carting around her portable typewriter and scrounging for payphone change in the seats of her old Volkswagen. If you've already read up through Q, don't spoil it for me, OK?

I always wonder which word Grafton will use for the letter Z, or if she's even decided yet. She's been writing the Kinsey Milhone mysteries for so long now that it will, as with any series, be sad to see it end. Even if she manages to churn out one installment each year, it will have taken her 26 years to complete them all. I'm sure they sell well enough to more than keep her going financially, and although she has already switched publishers once, I can't imagine she'll have trouble contracting to finish the series, assuming she hasn't already signed on the dotted line through Z. At least she has had the good sense to update her headshot on the back cover.