H Is for Homicide: A Kinsey Millhone Novel

Great book. Kinsey is the best. Loved it.

This one largely takes place in the Los Angeles barrio where Kinsey is (kind of) undercover investigating insurance fraud and murder for the California Indemnity Company. It's the last one in the series to have a major CIC connection. You have to re-read this after you've finished because a final three-word sentence stands the whole plot on its head. An even better reason for re-reading is to savor Grafton's English prose style. When she gets a whole building to describe she slightly prolongs things too much, but I love descriptions like this one, of a garage "The late afternoon sun slanted onto the cracked concrete floor in tawny yellow stripes. The air smelled of oil, old tires. and hot metal."

Funny, until I read some of the other reviews I thought this was one of the best Millhone book I had read. I have read A through H. Kinsey is hired to look into a claim by Bibianna Diaz. Along the way she finds Diaz is connected to the murder of her friend Parnell Perkins. I thought the way Sue Grafton weaved the characters through this book was very good. Raymond is a nut and Kinsey's experience with the pit bull is great. Does Kinsey end up working undercover for the police? Is someone else working undercover also? The answers are in the book, you will be surprised. I liked it.

. . .it all starts innocently enough, when California Fidelity, the company who's given Kinsey free office space for years in return for the occasional fraud investigation, gets taken over by Gordon Titus, an "efficiency expert." He's got it in for her from the get-go, so she takes a last-ditch fraud investigation job. Next thing you know, an old school friend, who's mixed up with the woman Kinsey's investigating, enters the picture, and to help him, Kinsey follows the woman clear into LA and gang territory. Getting out is not as easy as getting in was, either. This is especially upsetting to Vera Lipton, Kinsey's old CF friend, who just KNOWS that Kinsey will not be able to squeeze in a shopping trip for a new dress to wear to Vera's wedding. The last sentence of the epilogue, even more than the previous ones, is a "cliffhanger," and I couldn't wait to read "I" and find out what would happen next. Have fun, folks. . .

I loved H is for Homicide and believe that it is Sue Grafton at her finest. As a Sue Grafton fan, I have read all of her books and loved them all but this one really hit the spot.Kinsey Milhone, the main character, sets out to investigate a series of suspicious automobile insurance claims and ends up hanging out in the barrio with the perpetrators. Her entree into this secluded world was an evening spent in a very nasty bar posing as an after-hours tart whose mission is to befriend a for-real gorgeous tart who is the key to the insurance fraud ring. This is not the kind of duty that most of us would sign up for with any amount of enthusiasm. But Kinsey Milhone has guts of iron and nerves of steel. Those guts of iron allow her to swallow vast quantities of greasy restaurant food and the nerves of steel facilitate the endurance of the company of sleaze-bags for record amounts of time.None of the miscreants, be they White or Hispanic are spared her cynical witty observations. Readers will, in all likelihood, be laughing cynically at the unvarnished truth that Kinsey uncovers time and again. She lets us know when people are negligent about washing their hands after using the public restrooms. She promptly informs us when residential bathrooms are less than clean and the housework in general has been neglected, when people don't smell or look good. The things that irritate Kinsey tell us the most about her--primarily that she has high personal standards and a great sense of boundaries.Kinsey's level of tolerance for the creeps and oddballs that are the everyday encounters of her job is nothing short of remarkable. When she ends up hanging out with the denizens of the barrio in their apartment/headquarters, I thought that for sure she would end up dead in the apartment dumpster. Yet Kinsey's unique ability to blend in with her temporary surroundings and her skills as a private investigator combine to make a cliff-hanging suspense mystery novel.Sue Grafton is at the top of her form in H Is For Homicide. I also highly recommend L Is For Lawless to newcomers who feel inclined to jump into the series at any point. Just grab any one of her novels, curl up, and let Kinsey Milhone take over!

This is the first Kinsey Millhone book I read (due to availability) so I still consider it the best. While investigating for the insurance company she shares office space with, Kinsey meets up with an old schoolmate. The case is insurance fraud, and the story kept me interested not only in this book, but the entire series.