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Book Review: K is for Killer by Sue Grafton

K is for Killer brings us more of what we love about Sue Grafton's heroine, Kinsey Milhone. Kinsey is dogged; losing track of time as she rearranges and ponders the facts on her famous index cards. She is determined; even completely rearranging her sleep schedule so that she can catch up with the people that she needs to talk to. She is emotional and compassionate; crying for lost friends and helping whenever she can. But she is also not completely benevolent, which is probably the biggest reason that we love her. She hangs out in yet another shady nightspot drinking beer on the job, and she must resist the temptation to sleep with yet another hunky-but-married cop. In a fit of rage, she tattles on her enemy at just the wrong moment, later forced to confess to Lt. Dolan. And as always, Kinsey is never above lying, stealing, snooping, or sneaking in and out of places that she doesn't belong. All in a days work.

But this installment of Grafton's popular series leaves a lot of issues unattended to as well. Its not that I'm unsatisfied with the way things turn out, but too many ongoing, b-plot items are hardly mentioned at all. Instead of developing the relationship between the Hungarian bar owner and the landlord's brother, it is completely left out. In fact, Kinsey manages to spend almost no time at all in her favorite haunt this time around. Instead of developing the special friendship between Kinsey and Henry, he is out of town with very little explanation and doesn't figure into the story at all. There isn't even a scene featuring his return and reaction to recent events, a tool that Grafton often uses to summarize things and help Kinsey draw new conclusions. This new case has Kinsey up all night and sleeping all day, so she has very little time to pursue a relationship with her new found extended family members, although perhaps she prefers it that way.

Most importantly, Kinsey has always been far from monogamous, yet with all due respect to the one that she had to shoot and kill, I'm still waiting for one of her past lovers to return and wreak havoc in her life. There is definitely some chemistry between Kinsey and the vice cop on this case, but the relationship is not developed. It's a shame, since Ms. Grafton is masterful at building sexual tension without actually describing it.

In general, the author would do well to remember that Kinsey's homicide cases would be much more engaging and suspenseful if she spent

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