Books
V Is for Vengeance

by Sue Grafton
Marian Wood, November 2011, $27.95

As Sue Grafton winds down her alphabet series, it couldn’t be more popular with fans who eagerly await each book. Happily for us readers, she isn’t resting on her laurels. V is for Vengeance may be her best so far. The case begins when Kinsey alerts department store security to a woman she sees shoplifting item after item at her local Nordstrom. The woman, Audrey Vance, is arrested and a few days later she is found dead, seemingly a suicide. Audrey’s fiancé doesn’t believe it though, and hires Kinsey to find out what really happened.

This is a fast-paced private detective procedural, for sure, but also a novel rich with interesting, complex characters: Phillip Lanahan is a rich kid in over his head with gambling debts; pretty Nora Vogelsang is married to a hotshot Hollywood attorney who is cheating on her; and Audrey Vance was leading a double life as a professional thief. All of them have one person in common, Lorenzo Dante, a loan shark who has grown weary of the business. Dante, in fact, is at the heart of the book. Like that other famous Dante, he is hoping to escape his own personal hell.

Of course, the regular cast is back as well. Private investigator Kinsey Millhone turns 38 in this book, but she has not changed much. She still likes her Quarter Pounders and has one black dress she can wear in a pinch. Also returning is her octogenarian landlord and neighbor Henry; police detective Cheney Phillips; and Diana Alvarez, an intrusive reporter from U is for Undertow.

The novel moves quickly, alternating between Kinsey and the other characters, with a twist thrown in toward the end. But it’s the slow reveal of the characters, and the turns that their lives take, that keeps us in its grip. V may be for vengeance, but it’s also for very, very good.

Lourdes Venard

grafton_visforvengeanceHappily for readers of the Kinsey Millhone series, Grafton isn’t resting on her laurels. V is for Vengeance may be her best yet.

Teri Duerr
2248

by Sue Grafton
Marian Wood, November 2011, $27.95

Grafton
November 2011
v-is-for-vengeance
27.95
Marian Wood