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Tag Archives: fiction

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The Lolly-Madonna War by Sue Grafton (1969) – BR00160 (2019) – ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธโšชโšช

The PolyBlog
May 22 2019

Plot or Premise

I loved Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series, and since I’m a bit of a “completist”, once I like an author’s books, I try to read everything by them. Although it was made into a movie, this book has been long out of print. Which made no real senseโ€ฆhow could a book written by an author as prolific and popular as Sue Grafton, and that was made into a movie, not be available ANYWHERE? Now that I’ve read it, I can see why. Like Keziah Dane, one of her earlier books, the characters are dirt poor backwoods families. Isolated from town, this story takes place entirely on the properties between two neighbouring families. If you have ever heard of the old Hatfields and McCoys feud of two warring families, fighting for reasons they no longer remember, you have the Lolly Madonna War.

What I Liked

The book picks up mid-war with the latest skirmish. The one family, the Gutshalls, has let slip to the other family that there is a girl coming to their house, a girl named Lolly-Madonna who will be a potential mate for one of the sons. Except it is entirely fictitious. Until the second family, the Feathers, sees a girl hiking along the road and decides it must be Lolly Madonna and therefore kidnap her to get back at the Gutshalls, depriving them of their prize. The girl protests, but to no avail. The war escalates with incursions on each other’s territory, shots fired, stills overturned, pigs slaughtered. And a budding romance with the girl.

What I Didn’t Like

The story is incredibly depressing from start to finish. With a giant plot-hole right in the middleโ€ฆthree of the kids are still friendly and talk occasionally, pretending to fight when they need to but not doing any real harm to each other. And when the Feathers tell their Gutshall friend that they have Lolly Madonna, he doesn’t say, “But we made it up”. It would have ended the story. Instead, he decides to say nothing, tell his parents, and they get it in their head to say nothing but maybe they should rescue her. Just as an excuse to keep the feud goingโ€ฆif one does something, even in retaliation, the other has to respond. And the ending is beyond depressing, not to mention you don’t really “see” the ending, you just turn the page and find out how it all ended.

The Bottom Line

There’s a reason this is out of print.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, book review, fiction, Good Reads, hardcover, historical, library, novel, PolyWogg, prose, Reading Challenge, stand-alone, western | Leave a reply

Kinsey and Me by Sue Grafton (2013) – BR00151 (2019) – ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธโšชโšช

The PolyBlog
March 24 2019

The book is a collection of two sets of stories — the first set are Kinsey Millhone series set throughout the Alphabet series in time; the second set are about Kit Blue.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, biography, book review, Chapters, crime, detective, e-book, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, Millhone, mystery, Nook, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, psychology, series, short story | Leave a reply

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton (2017) – BR00150 (2019) – ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธโšชโšช

The PolyBlog
March 23 2019

With Sue Grafton’s death, there will be no Z book, so this is the last official Kinsey story. In it, she looks back at a cold case where four rich students filmed the rape of a young girl, someone stole the tape and was murdered, a court case sent two to jail, and the ringleader skipped town. Fast-forward, one of the jailed ones is out of prison, and he receives a copy of the missing tape with a blackmail demand. The parents want Kinsey’s help to ensure they only pay once, or ideally, not at all.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, Chapters, crime, detective, e-book, Ebook, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, Millhone (25), mystery, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, series | Leave a reply

W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton (2013) – BR00149 (2019) – ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธโšช

The PolyBlog
March 21 2019

Two deaths get Kinsey off and running – the apparent mugging death of a low-rent private investigator known for cutting corners and a John Doe homeless guy who died with Kinsey’s business address in his pocket.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, Chapters, crime, detective, e-book, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, Millhone, mystery, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, series | Leave a reply

V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton (2011) – BR00148 (2019) – ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ๐Ÿธ

The PolyBlog
March 21 2019

Fantastic opening — a gambler who hits a run of bad luck, and a loan shark who collects from his losing client pretty aggressively. Oh, and Kinsey apparently has two black eyes from trying to catch a shoplifter?

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, Chapters, crime, detective, e-book, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, Millhone, mystery, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, series | Leave a reply

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