O is for Outlaw

Another Kinsey Millhone story from Sue Grafton. She's fast coming up to the end of the Alphabet series, and in this story Kinsey reveals to the reader her first husband in all his glory. Actually, not so glorious and more drunken really.

The story begins with Kinsey receiving a telephone message from a lock-up scavenger who has acquired some belongings with her name on them. Her curiosity is piqued and she meets, pays for and then rifles through a box of memories which link her back to her first husband - Mickey Magruder.

Like the proverbial cat - curiosity continues to get Kinsey, and she cannot help looking for her first husband and trying to correct what she sees as an error in her behaviour towards him in the past. Here enters a lot of information about her history, her husband and it seems to me to add a lot of psychological flesh to her character.

The personal history and the current story are well woven together. It never feels like you are reading two stories. My only complaint is that I felt one or two aspects of Mickey's character were unnecessarily overly reinforced. Other than that, I would say that this Letter in the series is one of the best that I have read so far.

Not a strain to read. A good, well-crafted whodunnit.
out of 5