Cannonball #17: P is for Peril by Sue Grafton
by Caroline
Kinsey Millhone, a heroine I’ve read more than fifteen books about, may seem a strange follow-up to the classic Emma, but I chose her carefully for this. P is for Peril is one of the stronger Kinsey mysteries, involving a multilayered story and strong peripheral characters. More importantly, Kinsey is a self-sufficient modern woman who’s sworn off marriage and spends her days making assumptions about other people: She is the progeny of Emma’s smart on paper, stupid in feelings example.
A wealthy first wife comes to Kinsey to find her missing ex-husband, who at some point in the last few years left her for a stripper. He is a doctor caught in a breaking Medicare-fraud scandal who went missing nine weeks prior, just as the you-know-what hit the you-know-what. What at first looks simple turns out to be a total mess, with an embarrassment of riches as far as potential suspects go.
At the same time, Kinsey finds a too-good deal on some new office space with a pair of handsome brothers, one of whom is all up in her business with a Texas accent and a fixy carpenter thing Kinsey really likes. She also helps her apartment’s landlord Henry, a handsome and much-older gent she always kinda fancies, with a messy truckload of medical bills from a mutual friend’s elderly sister.
It gets very complex, the reader’s assumptions are established and then challenged, and Kinsey eats more crow than ever. She differs from Emma in that she is likable all along, and that her happy endings are not about happy matches for marriage. This one also had an abrupt, charming ending without any denouement and was paced to allow all the multiple intertwined stories to finish naturally. I was impressed with Grafton’s weaving skills, on top of her regular mystery-telling skills.
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