D is for Deadbeat (The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries)

I could not put this one down! Love the characters, and how she describes them in detail, and her descriptions of what she is seeing, you can see all in your minds eye. I love Sue Grafton!

Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone is back again in this fourth installment of Sue Grafton's alphabet series. This time she is offered a fee to give a $25,000 cashier's check to a young man named Tony Gahan. The check for the fee bounces and Kinsey is now looking for the man who gave it to her, plus the young man she is to give the cashier's check to. Everything she finds out about her client is bad. He is a drunk, who has killed several people in a car wreck, and appears to be a bigamist. When he is found dead, Kinsey has plenty of suspects including survivors of the dead motorists and two angry wives. This book is written in Grafton's usual breezy style, and Kinsey becomes more independent and more likeable with each book. I would recommend the whole series to mystery-lovers.

The funniest passages in this book involve the deadbeat's wife/widow (and she's not who you think in the beginning of the book) both at home and later at the funeral parlor. (Sue Grafton does funny funerals). When I first read this book, I snickered over the anniversary picture description, Kinsey's Sunday School memories, and her Wonder Woman sheets for days. Then I handed it to my mother and said, "you have to read this. It's FUNNY." She liked it, too. Like most of the "Alphabet" books, this one builds to a tension-filled last chapter, with the "respectfully submitted" epilogue that wraps it up for this go-around.

"D" is for Deadbeat is up there with Grafton's best. This one has a very good plot and an ending that is sure to take one by surprise. This is an excellent novel with which to start the Milhone series. An excellent read!

The alphabet detective is back and as good as ever. Grafton does a great job setting this mystery up and the ending is a complete surprise. The twists and turn in the book take you all over the place, where you end up is the one place you never would have figured. You will read this without putting the book down.

No one can make a funeral funnier than Kinsey. For that matter, I laughed till I wheezed over her description of the deadbeat's wife--a somewhat unstable Fundamentalist--and the picture taken on their 40th wedding anniversary. But the last chapter is a real nail-biter, as usual, and looking through Kinsey's eyes, these folks may be quirky, but human just the same. I've read all the books in the series, but this is the one I'd recommend to someone who hasn't read any of these books yet. What a sleuth