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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
I did enjoy this read. However I'm still confused on the end about Agnes' identity. I enjoyed reading about Kinsey and Dietz, and was a little bummed after reading the epilogue. Can't wait to start H.
G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton is a 1997, (originally published in 1990), Ballantine Books publication.
In January of this year, (2016), I vowed to get caught all the way up on this series by the end of the year. Naturally, I got side tracked, but I’m still determined to achieve my goal. So, here are my thoughts on the seventh installment of this popular and long-running series.
Kinsey is hired by a frail, sickly women to check on her mother because she has not heard from her in a while. Sounds like a simple enough task, and it is, at first. The old woman is found, placed in a facility, but up and disappears yet again, only this time she’s not so lucky.
In the meantime, Kinsey is informed she could be the target of an assassin she helped put away, requiring her to have a bodyguard, one she becomes quite close to before all is said and done.
This chapter in the series seemed super short for some reason. I read it in under an hour, but not because it was impossible to put down. There was a lot of action, some romance, but the case is a little murky and I had to read the last few chapters twice in order to make sure I had understood it right.
The assassin on Kinsey’s trail proved to be the more exciting part of the book and the irony of it made this story as hardboiled as any 1940’s detective story. This side story is the reason it upped my star rating, otherwise this one would have fallen rather flat.
Overall this one gets a 3.5 rounded to 4
Onward to H is Homicide
In January of this year, (2016), I vowed to get caught all the way up on this series by the end of the year. Naturally, I got side tracked, but I’m still determined to achieve my goal. So, here are my thoughts on the seventh installment of this popular and long-running series.
Kinsey is hired by a frail, sickly women to check on her mother because she has not heard from her in a while. Sounds like a simple enough task, and it is, at first. The old woman is found, placed in a facility, but up and disappears yet again, only this time she’s not so lucky.
In the meantime, Kinsey is informed she could be the target of an assassin she helped put away, requiring her to have a bodyguard, one she becomes quite close to before all is said and done.
This chapter in the series seemed super short for some reason. I read it in under an hour, but not because it was impossible to put down. There was a lot of action, some romance, but the case is a little murky and I had to read the last few chapters twice in order to make sure I had understood it right.
The assassin on Kinsey’s trail proved to be the more exciting part of the book and the irony of it made this story as hardboiled as any 1940’s detective story. This side story is the reason it upped my star rating, otherwise this one would have fallen rather flat.
Overall this one gets a 3.5 rounded to 4
Onward to H is Homicide
You can read my review here: http://www.whatireallythink.net/g-is-for-gumshoe/
I still really enjoy Kinsey, but the mystery in this one is a little bit contrived and I didn't think the book was as well-written as some others in the series. And some of Kinsey's tics -- her one nice dress, her eating habits, her fondness for Henry -- are beginning to seem repetitive, as if Grafton just copied some paragraphs from previous books and pasted them into this one.
Kinsey is hired to go look in on someone's mother down in Slab City. The client has not heard from her mother for months.
Complicating things is that someone has been hired to kill her. Can she keep herself safe while she tries to solve the case?
Complicating things is that someone has been hired to kill her. Can she keep herself safe while she tries to solve the case?
adventurous
mysterious
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
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Kinsey's life is on the line in this one and she is needing to partner up with someone to save herself. A little more intense than the previous ones.
I may create a Bad Cozy bingo game - I would have lost by a lot on this book :) I thought I had it figured out about half way through - I'm quite pleased I was wrong.
I do really get through unabridged audiobooks this quickly. As long as my workplace keeps paying me to spend hours doing brainless tasks a computer could do in seconds, I'll keep doing a whole lot of reading with my ears :)
I do really get through unabridged audiobooks this quickly. As long as my workplace keeps paying me to spend hours doing brainless tasks a computer could do in seconds, I'll keep doing a whole lot of reading with my ears :)
Full review: https://wanderinglectiophile.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/mini-reviews-kinsey-millhone-mysteries-the-alphabet-series-e-k-by-sue-grafton/
This one was one of my favorites for the number of intertwined stories/plots; it’s not all about the case she was hired to solve. I was also glad to see more personal life developments for Kinsey.
Overall, this is one of my favorite book series. I think Sue Grafton was incredibly clever and a great writer.
There are obviously some little things that ding the star rating, but really for the most part these books are very enjoyable. I’m always trying to guess where Kinsey is going with her line of thought in piecing the puzzle pieces together in her investigations. Sometimes I can see the direction it’s going to go and others I am pleasantly confused and pondering all the details and how they fit together. One of the things I like most about Grafton’s writing is that she can hing the whole plot on one tiny detail to an investigation. I’m sure that happens a lot in real investigations, but I find it so entertaining that Grafton wrote in such a way that these stories lend themselves to investigations rooted in reality. On the negative side of things, most of these books end a little too quickly for my taste. We can be trucking along to the climax of the story, the conflict happens, and the suddenly we’re at the end of the book within five minutes to the end of the audiobook (maybe about 10 pages in a physical copy?). Often the endings are abrupt and that’s a little off-putting for me.
I love that Grafton keeps her characters so realistic and grounded. Our protagonist isn’t some super powered private investigator or some heroin that’s had a rough past but trained to become as close to superhuman as possible in reality. No, Kinsey Millhone is just like the rest of us. I like that she’s got spunk, humor, sass, and a simplistic perspective on the world. It keeps things simple and clean, and that I feel is exactly who our Kinsey Millhone is in this series.
I started this series listening to the audiobook versions and I will probably keep “reading” them in this format. For about the first half of the series it is read by Mary Peiffer. Peiffer is not my favorite narrator but I believe my issues with her narrations are actually a sign of the times then. Audiobooks weren’t as prevalent back then and the rise of inflection and character voices were less common. This results in a very flat reading for much of Peiffer’s narrations. As the series goes along, she does begin to pitch her voice for characters as well as use inflections more. Unfortunately, she still sounds about twice the age of our main character and that’s a bit distracting. Now that I’m 11 books in though, I’ve gotten used to her as the voice of Kinsey. I’m not sure how well I will like it when it changes over to Judy Kaye in O is for Outlaw.
This one was one of my favorites for the number of intertwined stories/plots; it’s not all about the case she was hired to solve. I was also glad to see more personal life developments for Kinsey.
Overall, this is one of my favorite book series. I think Sue Grafton was incredibly clever and a great writer.
There are obviously some little things that ding the star rating, but really for the most part these books are very enjoyable. I’m always trying to guess where Kinsey is going with her line of thought in piecing the puzzle pieces together in her investigations. Sometimes I can see the direction it’s going to go and others I am pleasantly confused and pondering all the details and how they fit together. One of the things I like most about Grafton’s writing is that she can hing the whole plot on one tiny detail to an investigation. I’m sure that happens a lot in real investigations, but I find it so entertaining that Grafton wrote in such a way that these stories lend themselves to investigations rooted in reality. On the negative side of things, most of these books end a little too quickly for my taste. We can be trucking along to the climax of the story, the conflict happens, and the suddenly we’re at the end of the book within five minutes to the end of the audiobook (maybe about 10 pages in a physical copy?). Often the endings are abrupt and that’s a little off-putting for me.
I love that Grafton keeps her characters so realistic and grounded. Our protagonist isn’t some super powered private investigator or some heroin that’s had a rough past but trained to become as close to superhuman as possible in reality. No, Kinsey Millhone is just like the rest of us. I like that she’s got spunk, humor, sass, and a simplistic perspective on the world. It keeps things simple and clean, and that I feel is exactly who our Kinsey Millhone is in this series.
I started this series listening to the audiobook versions and I will probably keep “reading” them in this format. For about the first half of the series it is read by Mary Peiffer. Peiffer is not my favorite narrator but I believe my issues with her narrations are actually a sign of the times then. Audiobooks weren’t as prevalent back then and the rise of inflection and character voices were less common. This results in a very flat reading for much of Peiffer’s narrations. As the series goes along, she does begin to pitch her voice for characters as well as use inflections more. Unfortunately, she still sounds about twice the age of our main character and that’s a bit distracting. Now that I’m 11 books in though, I’ve gotten used to her as the voice of Kinsey. I’m not sure how well I will like it when it changes over to Judy Kaye in O is for Outlaw.