When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. Plenty of people had reason to want him dead. But the police thought his wife Nikki -- with motive, access and opportunity -- was the #1 suspect. The jury thought so too.
Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki hires Kinsey Millhone, a gutsy P.I., to find the real killer. The trail is cold but Kinsey finds a lead. It brings her face-to-face with the murderer!
This is the first in the popular series featuring California investigator Kinsey Millhone. She's 32, twice divorced, no kids, an ex-cop who likes her work... and who works strictly alone!
"Grafton has created a woman we feel we know, a tough cookie with a soft center, a gregarious loner... smart, well-paced and very funny."
Elaine Boldt is missing, and her sister wants Kinsey Millhone to find her.
Seems like a routine job. Boldt was last seen lavishly draped in a $12,000 lynx coat heading for Boca Raton. She never got there. But someone else had, and was camping out illegally in Mrs. Boldt's abode. Now, things were beginning to seem a bit less routine - particularly when Kinsey is ordered to drop the investigation just as she discovers that days before Elaine Boldt "bolted," her next-door neighbor and bridge partner had been murdered. Unfortunately, the killer is still at large . . . and looking for Kinsey!
Bobby Callahan was only 20 when an accident left him disfigured for life. The doctors patched up his body but they couldn't fix his mind.
Huge chunks of his memory were lost but he knew someone had tried to kill him and that the "accident" was deliberate. He knew he had the key to something that made him dangerous to the murderer but he didn't know what. No one believed him. . .so he hired Kinsey Millhone.
Three days later Bobby was dead. But Kinsey never welshed on a deal. She'd been hired to stop a killing, now she'd find the killer instead.
He calls himself Alvin Limardo, and the job he has for Kinsey is cut-and-dried: locate a kid who's done him a favor and pass on a check for $25,000. Stiffed for the retainer, Kinsey finds out Limardo's real name is John Daggett... ex-con, ex-liar-, ex-alchy, currently dead.
The cops call it an accident but Kinsey differs. Look at his life! A lot of people hated him, from much-abused wives, to drug dealers out big money, to the families of five people he killed driving drunk. In short, Daggett wasn't popular.
When an extra $5000 shows up in her bank account, Kinsey Millhone puts it down to clerical error. But suddenly the deposit makes sense. It's not a mistake, it's a setup!
Kinsey now has a new client: herself. As she unravels the frame, she finds her future tied to one family's secret, hidden for almost 20 years.
"One can only marvel at Grafton's seemingly endless stock of adventurous and inventive plots and hope that a finite alphabet won't limit her to just 26 mysteries."
-Booklist
How do you prove the innocence of a man already found guilty of murder?
That's the task Kinsey Millhone is faced with when she takes on the case of Bailey Fowler. These are the facts: Jean Timberlake, Bailey's girlfriend, was found dead on the sands of Floral Beach, California, seventeen years ago. Bailey, drug addict and convicted felon, with no good alibi, was sent to the slammer - even though he swore he didn't do it. After escaping less than a year before, he successfully disappeared until he was picked up on a fluke of mistaken identify. Can Kinsey prevent him from being sent back to prison by finding the real killer? And what kinds of deadly passions and murderous intentions will she stir up as she searches for the truth?
"Sue Grafton has created perhaps the most likable female private eye in the business."
--"Boston Globe
A Kinsey Millhone mystery. . .
Good and bad things seem to be coming in threes for Kinsey Millhone: on her thirty-third birthday she moves back into her renovated apartment, gets hired to find an elderly lady supposedly living in the Mojave Desert by herself, and makes the top of ex-con Tyrone Patty's hit list. It's the last that convinces Kinsey even she can't handle whoever's been hired to whack her, and she gets herself a bodyguard: Robert Dietz, a Porsche-driving P.I. who takes guarding Kinsey's body very seriously. With Dietz watching her for the merest sign of her usual recklessness, Kinsey plunges into her case. And before it's over, she'll unearth the gruesome truth about a long-buried betrayal and, in the process, come fact-to-face with her own mortality. . .
In this rich, complex and gripping tale, Kinsey Millhone's grit is tested to its utmost as the private detective unearths the gruesome truth about a long-buried betrayal -- and, in the process, comes face-to-face with the grisly fact of her own mortality.
The eighth in Grafton's best-selling series is perhaps the wildest ride yet....Grafton's skill with dialogue, her vivid characterizations and California scenery are priceless....There are moments when the tension becomes so unbearable that you are tempted to skip paragraphs out of self-preservation." (USA Today)
One of the best....A vivid, funny portrait of life in an ethnic underworld, viewed without judgment. Suspense there is, plentifully, and a final suggestion that Kinsey will be exploring different mischiefs next time. Outstanding." (Los Angeles Times)
A Kinsey Millhone Mystery. . .
Fired by the insurance agency for whom she investigates, Kinsey is forced to take on a last-minute murder investigation in which the ex-husband of a murdered artist claims that David Barney, her current husband, is guilty as sin. Barney gets to Kinsey and insists he's innocent. But if he is, who's guilty? In trying to learn who's been getting away with murder, Kinsey may be courting her own....
"Ms. Grafton writes a smart story and wraps it up with a wry twist."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Wendell Jaffe has been dead for five years--until his former insurance agent spots him in a dusty resort bar. Now California Fidelity wants Kinsey Millhone to track down the dead man. Just two months before, his widow collected on Jaffe's $500,000 life insurance policy--her only legacy since Jaffe went overboard, bankrupt and about to be indicted for his fraudulent real estate schemes. As Kinsey pushes deeper into the mystery surrounding Wendell Jaffe's pseudocide, she explores her own past, discovering that in family matters, as in crime, sometimes it's better to reserve judgment....
A MAIN SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD
"Ms. Grafton writes a smart story and wraps it up with a wry twist." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Wendell Jaffe has been dead for five years--until his former insurance agent spots him in a dusty resort bar. Now California Fidelity wants Kinsey Millhone to track down the dead man. Just two months before, his widow collected on Jaffe's $500,000 life insurance policy--her only legacy since Jaffe went overboard, bankrupt and about to be indicted for his fraudulent real estate schemes. As Kinsey pushes deeper into the mystery surrounding Wendell Jaffe's pseudocide, she explores her own past, discovering that in family matters, as in crime, sometimes it's better to reserve judgment....
A MAIN SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD
