Cliff’s friend Erin asks him to go help an old girlfriend charged with murdering her husband. It seems like a strange request considering the woman stole Erin’s boyfriend aka the dead guy, and they haven’t spoken since.
What I Liked
I am a bit of a sucker for stories involving unresolved emotional issues, and the story has a bit of that rolling around in it. There are even BOOKS, gasp, BOOKS involved in the story (shocker, right? The guy had a lot of high-end signed copies of middle-of-the-road scarce books, too many for a small-timer). So of course there are two stories — the death of the husband and the mystery of the signed books.
What I Didn’t Like
There is a bent local sheriff’s deputy who is almost a caricature at times, and the sub-story of the autistic boy is handled a little manipulatively (shows his grandparents are evil, for no real purpose — they didn’t need to be in the story at all — and two other kids that are referred to but hardly seen) plus he isn’t just autistic, more like Rain Man with drawing, of course. And the ending for the murder mystery is written taut, and supposedly riveting, but I just found it ridiculous.
Janeway decides to use his finder’s fee from the Grayson affair (book #2) to buy one amazing book, paying almost $30K for it at auction. The mystery is not about the origins of the book itself, but more about the author himself, an explorer named Richard Burton (not the actor).
What I Liked
After buying the book, Janeway is contacted by an old woman who claims the book was hers once upon a time and subsequently stolen. Janeway believes her, and involves some other people in the story, one of whom ends up dead. There’s a killer chasing the book and it leads all the way to the same places the explorer visited in the American South before the US Civil War. Seedy bookdealers, a biographer with a familiar monkey on his back, a family friend with a similar but slightly different monkey. Everyone wants the book, the history, the story, and to own a piece of history.
What I Didn’t Like
There is a lot of exposition in the story. Some of it comes from a woman who did research using hypnosis and tape recordings to recover lost memories, and while it works as a plot device, it could have just as easily been done earlier in the woman’s life and without as much page time. In addition, there is a flashback to the people in the Burton story (just before the US Civil War), which happens about the 40% mark and runs about 10-15% of the novel. It’s engaging in the first person but makes for another really long exposition. Finally, the action scene at the end seems more like a cheap action movie, and it takes a LONG time to get to the actual action.
The Bottom Line
Good mystery, but a lot of exposition and a slow ending.
Cliff gets offered a bounty-hunter job by a low-life ex-cop PI-wannabe and he is all prepared to say no — except the skip’s name is Eleanor Rigby and she is running out on a burglary charge, after breaking and entering to steal a rare book. Cliff is hooked.
What I Liked
The story takes a while to get going, and the opening prologue refers to a 20-year-old killing spree so you know there’s a story buried somewhere, all tied to the rare book. The book covers the history of a slightly-mad printer/publisher who created Grayson Press, a creator of fabulous beautiful books in limited runs up until he died in a fire that destroyed the company. And some books that he may or may not have published before the fire. Truly rare birds. Add in some characters like the sleazy PI, Eleanor herself, a biographer with a monkey on his back, and a reporter with the same monkey, and Janeway has some fun. There are two scenes where the life of the book scout comes alive, one spending a day in Seattle’s book biz looking for books and one where some biographical info of Grayson’s turns up. You feel almost breathless, just as Janeway does. And somewhere in the midst of all of it is a serial murderer.
What I Didn’t Like
The story lags in a few places, including complicated personal stories around the Grayson biographical info, and an extra action scene or two that are unwarranted simply because they do nothing to advance the story. The final wrap-up is a bit too formulaic in delivering some action, but it gets the job done.
The Bottom Line
An excellent mystery, with a little too much backstory in places.
Cliff Janeway is a book-loving police detective, and when a down-on-his-luck bookscout gets killed in an alley, Cliff thinks he knows who did it — Jackie Newton, local sadist and suspected killer of homeless men.
What I Liked
The first half of the book has an almost “western” feel to it, with Jackie being the resident bad guy and Cliff the passing drifter who stands his ground against the bully. It has a nice feel to it, but nothing super special. Then Cliff moves into the bookworld looking for who killed Bobby the BookScout, and the book blossoms into a story about a booklover who also happens to be a detective. It’s a fantastic world, made real with the details.
What I Didn’t Like
Jackie never seems real to me, more a caricature, and it is the bookworld that really brings it alive. Equally, there are some romance elements that don’t really work in the story, it seems more like going through the motions than immersive.
The Bottom Line
Great first book in the series, worthy of an Edgar nomination.
The book is a collection of two sets of stories — the first set is part of the Kinsey Millhone series and set throughout the Alphabet series in time; the second set is about Kit Blue.
What I Liked
The first part, with Kinsey Millhone, includes an introduction about how she created Kinsey (4/5), nine shortstories, and a conclusion about the history of the genre of the hard-boiled PI (3/5). The shortstories are fun to read, but there isn’t much “Kinsey” in them. Too little time to dwell, mostly focused on “wham bam, here’s a clue, here’s a solution”. One I rate at 4/5, five more at 3/5, and another three that aren’t very good at all.
Between the Sheets — Great opening where woman shows up to confess to murder she hasn’t reported yet, and when she goes back, the body is gone (3/5);
Long Gone — Missing wife, lots of kids, clues are pretty obvious (3/5);
The Parker Shotgun — Cool premise, quick solution, fair with the clues (4/5);
Non Sung Smoke — Find a one-night stand, have him get killed, throw in some drugs (3/5);
Full Circle — Cute ending to a simple case of who killed a young woman in a horrific car accident that Kinsey witnessed (3/5); and,
A Little Missionary Work — Two celebrities ask for Kinsey’s help with a fake kidnapping, but Kinsey reverses the con in the end (3/5).
The second part includes an introduction about Grafton’s not-so-idyllic early life, and how “Kit Blue” is a younger version of herself (3/5). The remaining thirteen stories work quite well as a collection of slices of Kit’s life, although individually I rate one as 5/5, five as 4/5, and three as 3/5, with another four below the line:
That’s Not An Easy Way To Go — Kit realizing she’s become the mother to her alcoholic mother (4/5);
Lost People — Kit reflecting on her alcoholic parents, displaced from their own lives (3/5);
Clue — Slice of life with mother visiting and Kit’s relief when she leaves (3/5);
Night Visit, Corridor A — Kit visiting mother in hospital (4/5);
April 24, 1960 — Kit dealing with news of her mother’s death on Kit’s birthday, and being irritated by her husband trying to comfort her (4/5);
The Closet — Kit cleaning out her mother’s closet after she’s gone and trying to figure out what it represents, if anything (4/5);
Maple Hill — Kit walking through an empty house saying goodbye to all of it (5/5);
Jessie — a housewoman talking about Kit’s mother (4/5); and,
A Letter From My Father — Kit reading a letter and sharing her own views of their life together (3/5).
What I Didn’t Like
Three of the Kinsey stories aren’t great:
Falling Off The Roof — A mystery book club with murder on its mind (1/5);
A Poison That Leaves No Trace — Quick case of a dead sister looking to know if her niece killed her mother (2/5); and,
The Lying Game — Old trope about a liar and a truthteller, you can only ask one question (1/5).
Four of the Kit Blue slices don’t stand alone very well:
A Woman Capable of Anything — Kit Blue watching a sleeping alcoholic mother (1/5);
A Portable Life — Kit coming to terms with the past being destroyed (1/5);
The Quarrel — Kit listening to her father explain his new wife’s behaviour (2/5); and,
Death Review — Kit’s working in a hospital as a medical secretary, spotting glimpses of her mom in the other patients (2/5).
