"In 1963, Ellie's mother, Doris Day Dingman, was crowned the Bosetti Beauty at Mr. Bosetti's supermarket, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the Dingmans began to fall apart."
So begins 11-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt Dingman's story. Ellie is the oldest child in her off-center family. Her father works construction jobs, while her mother, Doris, has only one dream-to become a rich and famous actress. But when that dream leads to Doris's abandonment of the family, it is Ellie who is called upon to take charge.
Here together for the first time on CD are the three mysteries that started it all, introducing sexy, savvy ex-cop turned P.I. Kinsey Millhone to listeners everywhere...
"A" Is for Alibi
Nikki Fife, convicted of murdering her husband Laurence, is out on parole after eight years of prison. Now, she hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed Laurence. The trail will twist and turn until finally turning back on itself, bringing Kinsey face-to-face with a killer cunning enough to get away with murder.
"B" Is for Burglar
Elaine Boldt is missing, and her sister wants Kinsey Millhone to find her. It seems to be a routine job-until Kinsey is ordered to drop the investigation just as she discovers that days before Elaine's disappearance, her next-door neighbor and bridge partner had been murdered. Now, the killer is still at large . . . and looking for Kinsey.
"C" Is for Corpse
Kinsey Millhone is recruited to help Bobby Callahan, a young man struggling back to life after his Porsche was forced to take a near-fatal nose dive over the edge of a canyon. Three days later Bobby is dead and Kinsey must capture a cold-blooded killer before he strikes again.
Of the #1 New York Times bestselling Kinsey Millhone series, NPR said, “Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters.”
Two dead bodies changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I’d never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue.
The first was a local PI of suspect reputation. He’d been gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa. It looked like a robbery gone bad. The other was on the beach six weeks later. He’d been sleeping rough. Probably homeless. No identification. A slip of paper with Millhone’s name and number was in his pants pocket. The coroner asked her to come to the morgue to see if she could ID him.
Two seemingly unrelated deaths, one a murder, the other apparently of natural causes.
But as Kinsey digs deeper into the mystery of the John Doe, some very strange linkages begin to emerge. And before long at least one aspect is solved as Kinsey literally finds the key to his identity. “And just like that,” she says, “the lid to Pandora’s box flew open. It would take me another day before I understood how many imps had been freed, but for the moment, I was inordinately pleased with myself.”
In this multilayered tale, the surfaces seem clear, but the underpinnings are full of betrayals, misunderstandings, and outright murderous fraud. And Kinsey, through no fault of her own, is thoroughly compromised.
W is for . . . wanderer . . . worthless . . . wronged . . .
W is for wasted.
It's April 1988, a month before Kinsey Millhone's thirty-eighth birthday, and she's alone in her office catching up on paperwork when a young man arrives unannounced. Michael Sutton is twenty-seven, an unemployed college dropout. More than two decades ago, a four-year-old girl disappeared, and a recent newspaper story about her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories. Sutton now believes he stumbled on her lonely burial and could identify the killers if he saw them again. He wants Kinsey's help in locating the grave and finding the men. It's way more than a long shot, but he's persistent and willing to pay cash up front. Reluctantly, Kinsey agrees to give him one day of her time.
But it isn't long before she discovers Sutton has an uneasy relationship with the truth. In essence, he's the boy who cried wolf. Is his story true, or simply one more in a long line of fabrications?
Moving effortlessly between the 1980s and the 1960s, and changing points of view as Kinsey pursues witnesses whose accounts often clash. Gradually, we come to see how everything connects in this twisting, complex, surprise-filled thriller. And as always, at the beating heart of her fiction is Kinsey Millhone, a sharp-tongued, observant loner who never forgets that under the thin veneer of civility is a roiling dark side to the soul.
A woman with a murky past who kills herself - or was it murder? A spoiled kid awash in gambling debt who thinks he can beat the system. A lovely woman whose life is about to splinter into a thousand fragments. A professional shoplifting ring working for the Mob, racking up millions from stolen goods. A wandering husband, rich and ruthless. A dirty cop so entrenched on the force he is immune to exposure. A sinister gangster, conscienceless and brutal. A lonely widower mourning the death of his lover, desperate for answers, which may be worse than the pain of his loss. A private detective, Kinsey Millhone, whose thirty-eighth-birthday gift is a punch in the face that leaves her with two black eyes and a busted nose. And an elegant and powerful businessman whose dealings are defnitely outside the law: the magus at the center of the web. V: Victim. Violence. Vengeance.From the Compact Disc edition.
Here together for the first time on CD, Santa Teresa P.I. Kinsey Millhone is still on the case...
"G" Is for Gumshoe
Kinsey Millhone's thirty-third birthday brings about final renovations to her apartment, a new case, and the top slot on Tyrone Patty's hit list. Obviously, it would turn out to be a birthday to remember.
"H" Is for Homicide
To the cops, the death of claims adjuster Parnell Perkins looked like a robbery gone sour; to Kinsey Millhone, it looks strangely suspicious. As the evidence leads Kinsey to insurance scammer Bibianna Diaz, she must race to get to her before Bibianna's spurned and violent suitor Raymond Maldonado does.
"I" Is for Innocent
Kenneth Voight thought that justice had not been served when David Barney was acquitted in the shooting death of Voight's ex-wife, Isabelle. Five years later, Voight is the plaintiff in a civil suit in which Barney stands accused of Isabelle's wrongful death. When Voight hires Kinsey to gather the necessary damning evidence, a simple civil case becomes a deadly hunt for someone who once got away with murder-and may again.
Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only two letters left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment.
X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss.
X: The shortest entry in Webster's Unabridged. Derived from Greek and Latin and commonly found in science, medicine, and religion. The most graphically dramatic letter. Notoriously tricky to pronounce: think xylophone.
X: The twenty-fourth letter in the English alphabet.
Sue Grafton's X: Perhaps her darkest and most chilling novel, it features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim.
From the bestselling author of the Alphabet mystery series comes the newest installation: R IS FOR RICOCHET. Reba Lafferty, abandoned by her rebellious mother when she was an infant, is the only child of a rich man already in his 50s when Reba is born. Adored and thoroughly spoiled by her father, she is 32 years old and about to be released with probation from the California Institute for Women, having served less than half of her four-year sentence for embezzlement. Wanting her to 'stay straight' - away from drugs, drink, and gambling - her father, Nord Lafferty wants her to stay at home. For Kinsey it seems an easy enough assignment: babysit the seemingly remorseful and friendly Reba for a week, while earning good money. But no less than 24 hours after Reba's release, one of her crowd stops by.
S is for silence: the silence of the lost, the silence of the grave, the silence of oblivion.Thirty-four years ago, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. She was never seen again. In the small California town of Serena Station, tongues wagged. Some said she'd run off with a lover. Some said she was murdered by her husband. But for the not-quite-seven-year-old daughter Daisy that she left behind, her absence has never been explained or forgotten.Now, thirty-four years later, she wants the solace of closure.In S IS FOR SILENCE, Kinsey Millhone's nineteenth excursion into the world of suspense and misadventure, S is for surprises as Sue Grafton takes a whole new approach to telling the tale. And S is for superb: Kinsey and Grafton at their best.
Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only one letter left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment.
The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate-and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns state's evidence and two of his peers are convicted. But the ringleader escapes without a trace.
Now, it's 1989 and one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. Moody, unrepentant, and angry, he is a virtual prisoner of his ever-watchful parents-until a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand. That's when the McCabes call Kinsey Millhone for help. As she is drawn into their family drama, she keeps a watchful eye on Fritz. But he's not the only one being haunted by the past. A vicious sociopath with a grudge against Millhone may be leaving traces of himself for her to find...
Based on an unsolved 1969 homicide, this latest Kinsey Millhone case puts her on the trail of the murderer of a young "Jane Doe, " whose body was discovered 18 years ago near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The original detectives want one last shot to solve the case, and they turn to Kinsey to help identify the girl and find her killer.
Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only two letters left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment.
X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss.
X: The shortest entry in Webster's Unabridged. Derived from Greek and Latin and commonly found in science, medicine, and religion. The most graphically dramatic letter. Notoriously tricky to pronounce: think xylophone.
X: The twenty-fourth letter in the English alphabet.
Sue Grafton's X: Perhaps her darkest and most chilling novel, it features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this sociopath. The test is whether Kinsey can prove her case against him before she becomes his next victim.
