Generally intriguing and entertaining detective story until the solution is revealed

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	• K Is for Killer (Grafton, Sue. Kinsey Millhone Mysteries.) Sue Grafton, 1994 - 284 pages average customer review:based on 56 reviews view larger image
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Despite the hurried ending, I enjoyed this one

I am an off and on again reader of Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries. Eventually, I will get around to reading them all, but it is not on my priority list of author's or series.

That being said, I enjoyed this one. I thought the plot line led Kinsey to interesting people and places. As others have already noted, the ending is a bit forced. I understand why (Kinsey makes an ethical compromise that she would rather just gloss over) but it does not do much service to the reader.

I give this one a B+ and I would say that this one makes me more likely rather than less likely to pick up another one in this series.

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Enjoyable Escape...

I'm working my way through the alphabet and these books are proving to be a guilty escape. K is for Killer is one of the best ones so far. While these books aren't deep or graphic, they are fun, and I look forward to the next one.

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A different side of Kinsey exposed

#11 of the Kinsey Malone Series-A mother hires Kinsey to find the killer of her 25 year old daughter, Lorna. Kinsey tries to do what the police couldn't do. Lorna's body was found so long after her death, it was impossible to determine the cause. Her mother, however insisted it was murder. Kinsey is up all hours of the night for this one. This book was different from the others. Kinsey seems to let this case get to her emotions. She figures out who the murderer is but what she does about it is out of character. One of the most memorable quotes comes to mind in relation to this particular mystery, "Those who fight monsters should take care they never become one. For when you stand and look long into the abyss , the abyss also looks into you."-Friedrich Nietsche.

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Generally intriguing and entertaining detective story until the solution is revealed

As soon as I read her earliest books, Sue Grafton became one of my favorite writers of light, straight, credible detective fiction. She can be a terrific storyteller. After being badly disappointed by the skimpy, disorganized "G" and "H" stories, and buoyed by the more substantial "I" and (to a lesser extent) "J" book, I was looking forward to "K." When picking up "K," you have to wonder where the story can go, as Millhone herself admits: how in the world after all of this time is she going to be able to get to the bottom of a 10-month-old death with no clues?

I found much of the book fast-paced and engaging, with diligent, believable legwork. Certain characters and descriptions are interesting. Grafton creates two memorable and likable victims. She gives them characteristics and a lifestyle that make them intriguing and make the reader want to know more. The book avoids the pitfall of venturing into out-of-its-depth "social commentary"; aside from a few scattered acerbic or snide remarks about pornography, the book is remarkably matter-of-fact and clinical, unlike Melodie Johnson-Howe's regrettably amateurish, ludicrous treatment of the subject in "Beauty Dies." There is thus a lot of interest in the interrogations of people who knew the victims. The interviews are matter-of-fact and believable, but they are not terribly informative, and show how much the suspense and interest of the book is driven by making the main victim a girl-next-door-high-class hooker and would-be porn queen.

The twists in the plot that Millhone's investigation brings to light are generally believable (for example, one character's tampering with a crime scene and a jealous wife planting an item in a home). The "new" evidence she turns up is generally well-finessed to avoid the obvious question why the detailed police investigation fell flat.

But the book grows increasingly frustrating when it becomes clear that the routine interviews are all the book had to offer and that they are not adding up to much. By contrast to the victims, the suspects are poorly explored characters with no motives. A land developer is not introduced until late in the book, as a result of a fortuitous tape recording. The "community meeting" about the development is one of the sketchiest, lamest, most exaggerated, least believable descriptions in the book (Millhone supposedly "falling asleep" is a lame excuse for skimping on details). The crucial link between suspects is an awful, improbable gift clue of a photo (why would a killer choose to attack a victim when it would be impossible to thoroughly search the apartment for such items, much less let it be shot in the first place? What good did it do to "kill all the witnesses," a throwaway line explanation, if possibly and glaringly incriminating evidence was left behind?).

The payoff is a superficially (if at all) described land development scam with a pool electrocution killing on the side. Because the crime lacks intricacy and cleverness, the detection merely had to be, and is, serviceable and routine, if diligent, to uncover it. And, of course, it is assisted by plot contrivances like a hidden tape recorder, Berlyn's intervention, the photo, and the killer's attempt on Millhone's life. The last two of these are the most disappointing, but the story has too little payoff to offset any of them. The story also includes a regrettable and pointless coincidence (a "kinky sex" relationship between two victims) and depends on unexplained, implausible behavior (the killer blabbing supposedly ingenious murder plans to one of the victims). The melodramatic end scene where Millhone confronts the killer and is blasted with a stun gun, before the intercession of a "man in an overcoat," undermines her professionalism and is an abrupt, anticlimactic conclusion. The last-minute theme-type allusion to "returning from the darkness" of vengeance, tied to the book's leitmotif of "living in the darkness, in the night," is mere atmospherics, not meaningful substance.

The bottom line is that the highly charged premise and interesting, entertaining elements along the way come to precious little in the end. This holds the book's rating down to between three and four stars, which, among the later books up to "O" that are closest to it in quality, is better than "J," "O," and probably "M," but not as good as "N."

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Lorna Kepler was beautiful and willful, a loner who couldn't resist flirting with danger. Maybe that's what killed her.

Her death had raised a host of tough questions. The cops suspected homicide, but they could find neither motive nor suspect. Even the means were mysterious: Lorna's body was so badly decomposed when it was discovered that they couldn't be certain she hadn't died of natural causes. In the way of overworked cops everywhere, the case was gradually shifted to the back burner and became another unsolved file. Only Lorna's mother kept it alive, consumed by the certainty that somebody out there had gotten away with murder. So she hired Kinsey Millhone, P.I.

Her eleventh letter into the alphabet is vintage Grafton, where our favorite private investigator finds herself facing dangerous consequences and the frightening possibility of a killer walking free.

Look for other titles in the Alphabet Mystery Series from Random House AudioBooks.

Judy Kaye has appeared on Broadway in Oh, Brother; Grease and On the Twentieth Century, and won the Tony Award for her performance in The Phantom of the Opera.

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