Fri 23 Sep 2016
SUE GRAFTON – X. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, August 2015; paperback “premium edition,” August 2016.
Going back to read my review of W Is for Wasted, I see some significant signs of how Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series was progressing back then, and to my mind, the answer is not well.
First of all, I said, “The case itself is not all that interesting…,” then I said:
“I’m also not sure why Grafton has Kinsey relate everything she does, down to the minutest bit of minutia possible, whether it be meals, areas of town she drives through, or the GNP of the nation.”
In X, the case is even less interesting than in W, with much of the the story dealing with loose threads left behind from the earlier one, and Grafton’s penchant to spell out in detail everything Kinsey does, from preparing breakfast, dealing with her landlord Henry’s cat, to delineating every turn along the way, complete with street names, whenever she drives from one place in the fictional town of Santa Teresa to another, seems to have gotten worse.
Half of what happens in the first 192 pages is banal and uninteresting (see above). The other half, dealing with one of the two cases she seems to be on (they may yet be connected), something to do with a lawsuit that took place years and years ago, as well as a coded list of names of women connected with it, is even less compelling.
And this is as far as I got. There are still 240 pages to go, and I see no promise of improvement. If reviewers are not supposed to review books they haven’t finished, I will promise to do better next time.
September 23rd, 2016 at 11:22 pm
I think Grafton knows most readers by now just want to spend time with Kinsey. The plots have become increasingly bare bones. By now she has a steady loyal readership who seem content with what you or I would see as flaws.
September 24th, 2016 at 7:02 am
This is why I quit the series halfway through the alphabet. Who cares? Not me. Plus there was an increasing sense I was getting that I didn’t really like Kinsey anymore, and the whole creepy fetish about her 90 year old landlord.
Life is short. There are too many books I want to read to force myself through another of these.
September 24th, 2016 at 8:35 am
I also quit about K. Maybe even J. She made a great mistake with sticking with a character she had run out of things to say about and cases for her to solve. Instead of being revered for her work, she risks being pitied.
September 24th, 2016 at 10:37 am
About reviewing a book you haven’t finished. I recall the remark by someone that one doesn’t have to eat the entire egg once you realize it is rotten.
September 24th, 2016 at 10:40 am
I went to Amazon to see what the general readership’s opinion has been of this book. 57% give it five stars, but over 100 readers have given it only one, with comments such as the following predominating the latter:
“This book was AWFUL! I think it’s clear she’s ready to retire! … It was so mundan[e] in parts I just skipped over tedious details.”
September 24th, 2016 at 1:40 pm
Can we hope that Y or Z will be better than the previous titles? Probably not.
September 24th, 2016 at 2:06 pm
I’m a lot more likely to start over again at A than spend money on either Y or Z.
September 24th, 2016 at 2:56 pm
24 reviews of Sue Grafton coming up …
September 24th, 2016 at 5:42 pm
Maybe the author is just getting old or not feeling well.
September 24th, 2016 at 5:57 pm
Most of you made it much further along than I did. Three books in I still had not encountered a single outcome that I hadn’t figured out by the middle of the book. Also, I found characters (and Kinsey’s reaction to them, and they to her) wildly inconsistent, even within the same paragraph. And I never really cared for Kinsey–a fatal flaw for a series character. I think I gave up after C and never went back.
September 24th, 2016 at 10:42 pm
I also gave up on this series early in the alphabet. I had hoped for a better result but my final conclusion was simply that Grafton was not one of the better PI authors.
September 25th, 2016 at 12:36 pm
I have sampled some but never read an entire one. This due more to my taste usually running to the little known and different than mainstream bestsellers.
I do hope there is one fan who can visit here and explain Grafton’s appeal. I find it easier to explain the series making it to X than how it made it to D. Fans of bestsellers – it has been my observation – are loyal and do not like change.
Books featuring characters over plot seem to be very popular with genres such as romantic suspense and light mysteries (Janet Evanovich for example).
September 26th, 2016 at 5:30 pm
Yes. I agree with all these comments. Especially the one that life is too short… I gave up about G but went back to read M because it got quite good reviews. It was only ok.
I had a similar sinking feeling reading The Cat Who …series. However I enjoyed the country village world it depicted. This too wore off as the plots got worse.