Book Review: “V” is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton (Kinsey Millhone #22)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Kinsey and the cast; plot at times

Cons: Weak sub-plot; poor climax

The Bottom Line:

Trail of shoplifter

With weak subplot and climax

Series fans only

Stumbles at the End

I have long maintained that to truly judge a story you have to experience the entire thing.  Sometimes, what you are finding annoying clicks into place late in the story and makes up for the annoyance.  And, sometimes, a book suffers from a weak climax.  Sadly, “V” is for Vengeance falls into that second category.

This is the twenty-second book in Sue Grafton’s famous Kinsey Millhone mysteries.  I’ve been listening to these in order and mostly enjoying them.  Kinsey is a private investigator in the town of Santa Teresa, a very thinly disguised Santa Barbara, California.

This book finds Kinsey in the right place and the right time to foil a shoplifter.  She is surprised to find that the shoplifter kills herself the next day.  But the surprises keep coming when the dead woman’s fiancé hired Kinsey to prove that the woman didn’t kill herself.  The fiancé doesn’t think she was a shoplifter either, so he and Kinsey have a contentious relationship from the very start.  But can Kinsey figure out what really happened?

One thing I’ve noticed in the last few entries in this series is chapters written from other character’s third person points of view.  Sometimes, they take place in the past and help pull us into the story by giving us details that Kinsey doesn’t have yet.  In this case, they take place in the present.  They introduce a sub-plot that I truly couldn’t care any less about and slowed down the main story.  The plot would have been stronger if these chapters were completely removed from the book, and we wouldn’t have missed a thing.

It's a shame the book has these chapters since the main mystery was good.  The chapters written from Kinsey’s first person point of view were fantastic and really drew me in.  I got so invested that the further I got into the story, the harder it was to stop.  In fact, there was a moment about two thirds of the way into the book where I had a very hard time stopping for the rest of the story.

And then I came to the climax.  It’s actually weak overall.  I understand why Kinsey did what she did, but events would have happened the same way without her.  There are other aspects to the climax that were disappointing, and one character’s actions didn’t ring true at all.

Which is a shame since I enjoy spending time with Kinsey and her friends.  After spending so much time with them, just hearing their names can make me smile, and that happened again here.

As always, I listened to the audio of this book.  Judy Kaye continues to do a good job of bringing the story to life.

Fans will still want to read “V” is for Vengeance.  If you are new to the series, I definitely recommend you give it a try.  The early books make it obvious why the series has amassed the loyal fans it has.

Check out the rest of the Kinsey Millhone Mysteries.