Review of V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton

V is for Vengeance – Kinsey Millhone Series #22
Sue Grafton
Penguin
ISBN13: 9780399157868
448 pages

The year is 1988, Ronald Regan is President, the soviets are warring in Afghanistan and Sonny Bono is Mayor of Palm Springs. On the radio Frank Zappa sang Once Upon a Time and Hall & Oates were singing “Everything your heart desires and Kinsey Millhone private detective turns 38, she’s given a gift that’s appreciation isn’t understood until later. Come with her as she takes us back and reflects on this case, the people involved and her vexing “gift”.
While shopping Kinsey spots and helps apprehend one of a pair of shoplifters and is surprised to learn a few days later that the thief has apparently committed suicide. She finds herself further embroiled in the situation when she takes the dead woman’s fiancée on as a client and he doesn’t want to believe what the evidence shows. But the evidence doesn’t begin to expose what’s really going on and Kinsey soon learns that the puzzle pieces she’s given in relation to this case only leads to more questions, puts her in more danger and leads her to some very unsavory situations.

V is for vivid descriptive narrative, V is for vivacious some charming some sinister characters, V is for Victory when it comes to this superbly talented author hitting another home run. Ms. Grafton has never been better at her game than with V is for Vengeance. This is a fast paced, edge of your seat page turner. It’s also more than a mystery/thriller, there’s a love story, a crime drama and a history lesson in our recent past. She brings us star quality characters who never cease to amuse, entertain or scare us out of our wits. She uses a dialogue that is easy to read as we follow the clues she drops like bread crumbs, but have a hard time piecing together until the very end. Her plot is a mixture of connect the dots and crime magazine where to get to the solution there’s always a bit of head scratching first, but the end always justifies the means.
So if you’re looking for something a little deeper than holiday novels, a little darker than average and a whole lot better than anything else out there, here it is.
It also makes a great stocking stuffer and it’s easy to wrap and will fit under any tree.
Thank you Ms. Grafton and even though you’ve made us wait two years, it was definitely worth the wait.

Buy the book here visit the author's website here