Tuesday 15th December 2009
by Caroline
Sue Grafton makes me happy. She writes consistently readable mystery novels with an independent, believable heroine and an interesting cast of supporting characters, kind of a Murder She Wrote for the slightly younger set.
For the uninitiated (and, with millions of copies of each book sold, I guess there aren’t many), the star of Grafton’s series is Kinsey Millhone, a thirtysomething private investigator hitting the prime of her career in the mid to late 1980s. She’s low maintenance, low drama, and high energy, with few friends and a great deal of skepticism toward her fellow human. In each book, you learn a little more about Kinsey: her estranged family, occasional relationships, and reliable patterns of behavior.
In fact, Kinsey seems kind of clueless in the abstract: few attachments, no family commitments, and a solitary life as a P.I. She looks like Veronica Mars in twenty years, someone whose disappointment in other people is constantly reinforced by her duties investigating people whose most mild offense is adultery. But Kinsey isn’t this way, besides some garden-variety cynicism. She is intelligent and suspicious, but genuinely enjoys the company of many people she meets in her investigations and her few close friends.
So anyway.
Q is for Quarry begins with a cold case, a twenty-year-old murder of a teenage girl who was never identified. The Jane Doe case is real, and Grafton uses it as the jumping-off point for an elaborate series of connections between small-town families and past scandals. Many of the people she meets are townie ne’er-do-wells who pose no real threat, and Kinsey develops soft spots for certain individuals. She puts in dozens of hours of back and forth with people whose stories don’t add up, keeps meticulous notes as always, and tries to see everything from every angle.
The real highlight of this book isn’t Kinsey, nor the murder investigation. It’s Kinsey’s two colleagues, one a retired detective and the other an active lieutenant, who draw her into the cold case from the getgo. In many ways, Kinsey acts like an ornery old man, so when Grafton seals her up with them in a small town for a week, Kinsey has to step back and observe the differences. No, she is not all that ornery. And yes, she does miss having reliable male companionship in her life.
The two cops are also great characters: one a cancer patient selling off his possessions and planning for the worst; the other a drinking, chainsmoking junk-food addict with a history of heart problems. Kinsey hassles both for their terrible attitudes and behavior, and it’s clear she enjoys the opportunity to help as much as to lovingly needle.
Cannonball logo font: Sketch Rockwell. For more on the Cannonball Read, see Pajiba.
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