G is for Gumshoe – Sue Grafton

My mum introduced me to Sue Grafton, and it’s been great, because we’ve read them at the same time and been able to swap, give them to each other as gifts, and talk about them. For those who don’t know, she (Grafton, not my mum) has written a series titled in ascending order through the alphabet. ‘A is for Alibi’, ‘B is for Burglar’ etc.

Kinsey Milhone is the main character in this series. I love her as a protagonist because she’s a little bit standoffish, a bit world weary, and a bit reluctant to get close to people. Her relationships are short lasting, and unpredictable, she tends to hook up romantically with people who are ultimately unavailable. She is dogged and takes risks more out of stubbornness than courage. She is also very happy in her tiny apartment space, local neighborhood, and there is much routine and familiarity in the same old characters and same old places in each book.

“I opened my trunk and checked my spare, which was looking a bit soggy in itself. I wrestled it out and bounced it on the pavement. Not wonderful, but I decided it would get me as near as the nearest service station, which I remembered seeing a few miles down the road. This is why I jog and bust my hump lifting weights, so I can cope with life’s little inconveniences. At least I wasn’t wearing heels and panty hose and I didn’t have glossy fingernails to wreck in the process.”


“On the far side of the road was a café with a blinking neon that said EAT AND GET GAS. Just what I needed.”

This was a great Kinsey mystery, with an out of town trip to a dustbowl trailer park land, interweaving of two stories - one from now and one from decades before, a threat on her life and the first encounter of the hot and heavy kind with Dietz. Does this all sound like Mills and Boon with guns? It's not, really, it's, you know, nuanced, and funny and standoffish and cool. Really.