A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series, 1)

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MacDonald's Travis McGee series, each of which included a color in the title, and Harry Kemelman's Rabbi Small series, each of which included a day of the week in the title. Plenty of people in the picturesque Southern California town of Santa Teresa had a reason to want him dead. And despite the fact that Kinsey drives around in her '68 VW 'Bug' and has terrible dietary habits (or maybe BECAUSE of those things), I find that I still really like her character. As Millhone begins to learn more about the murder and about Fife’s life, she discovers that there was another very similar poisoning death not long after Fife’s. I kept fighting the good fight and said I wouldn’t begin reading these books until I found “A” in hardback for wicked cheap.

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton is a gripping mystery novel featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone.Here, the story revolves around a convicted female felon that hires Kinsey to find out who actually murdered her husband. She then goes to Las Vegas to interview Fife's former secretary, Sharon Napier, who is killed minutes before Kinsey arrives.

The story built up quite slowly but picked up the pace at the end and it was easy to read the whole thing in a fairly short time. If you’re not interested in reading through my reasons behind not liking this book, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of my reaction upon finishing . I pulled the coffeepot from the bottom of the file cabinet and filled it from the Sparkletts water bottle behind the door. Kinsey starts to piece together the events leading up to Laurence's murder and realizes that there are several people who had motives to kill him. One might wonder why Nikki got only eight years for a premeditated murder, but this is never explained.I’d never really met her but I’d been present at her trial eight years before when she was convicted of murdering her husband, Laurence, a prominent divorce attorney here in town.

In addition to the junk, I keep a packed overnight case back there, too, for God knows what emergency. She had only recently been released from prison after serving eight years for the murder of her husband Laurence.You kill people you hate or you kill in rage or you kill to get even, but you don’t kill someone you’re indifferent to. Otto Prenzler, "Forward", The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021, edited by Lee Child, The Mysterious Press, New York, p. While the book was acceptable/average in terms of its overall plot, development, and color, my enjoyment of the novel came from the fact that until the last half of the book (when the protagonist - a female detective - sleeps with a man she is investigating) I hadn't realized that the main character was a woman. As Millhone begins to dig deeper and follow up on different aspects of Fife’s personal and professional lives, the trail leads her to one particular witness, who is murdered before being able to ‘fill in blanks’ in the case. Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller have their fictional detective spot Millhone at a convention in Chicago.