338 reviews for:

C is for Corpse

Sue Grafton

3.69 AVERAGE

dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Another great Kinsey Millhone case. 

funny mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I continue to really enjoy this series! I really like Kinsey a lot- she seems to be the most realistic main character from a mystery series that I've ever experienced (probably because she's a PI and actually has a reason to investigate crimes- compared to a soup store owner or a florist or something- but I digress). This was a little tricky to solve but I did end up guessing the ending but I enjoyed my entire read. The plot is well crafted and gives just enough information to make guesses but never enough to feel 100% sure in the whodunnit. And for a book set in the mid 1980's, this story holds up really well. There are moments where I think "oh, a quick Google search would clear that up....ohhhh right" and wish Kinsey had a cell phone but throughout the whole book, the time difference isn't incredibly obvious. Really a well done mystery story.
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No

Not a huge fan of the author’s excessive descriptions of every room, house, and unremarkable place. Nor do I like the way characters are described, or really the main character. But i enjoyed it, and I was sprinting through the last chapter, all tensed up. Shame the wrap-up chapter is literally two pages, it’d be nice to have a slightly longer conclusion 

I liked that this one had a subplot mini mystery that was interesting and that many of the obvious possibilities were covered, but didn't end up being true.

2 STARS

"He was young-maybe twenty or so-and he must once have been a good-looking kid. Kinsey could see that. But now his body was covered in scars, his face half-collapsed. It saddened Kinsey and made her curious. She could see he was in a lot of pain. But for three weeks, as Kinsey'd watched him him doggedly working out at the local gym, putting himself through a grueling exercise routine, he never spoke.

Then one Monday morning when there was no one else in the gym, Bobby Callahan approached her. His story was hard to credit: a murderous assault by a tailgating car on a lonely rural road, a roadside smash into a canyon 400 feet below, his Porsche a bare ruin, his best friend dead. The doctors had managed to put his body back together again-sort of. His mother's money had seen to that. What they couldn't fix was his mind, couldn't restore the huge chunks of memory wiped out by the crash. Bobby knew someone had tried to kill him, but he didn't know why. He knew he had the key to something that made him dangerous to the killer, but he didn't know what it was. And he sensed that someone was still out there, ready to pounce at the first sign his memory was coming back. He'd been to the cops, but they'd shrugged off his story. His family thought he had a screw loose. But he was scared-scared to death. He wanted to hire Kinsey.

His case didn't have a whole lot going for it, but he was hard to resist: young, brave, hurt. She took him on. And three days later, Bobby Callahan was dead.

Kinsey Millhone never welshed a deal. She'd been hired to stop a killing. Now she'd find the killer." (From Amazon)

An okay mystery
mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

 I'm still not sure how I feel about this series. I like the idea of it and I like Kinsey, but I struggle with how Grafton lays out her stories. There is just so much background and telling, rather than showing. It seems as though there's no way to communicate information to readers other than Kinsey going around and talking to people, then everything wraps up in the last 10 pages. I hope that as Grafton keeps writing, her style gets better. 
adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced