U is for Undertow

Sue Grafton - U is for Undertow

The first Alphabet Series mystery featuring Kinsely Milhone  (‘A is for Alibi’) was written 27 years prior to this book.  For obvious reasons, the main character ages a lot more slowly, so by the time we get to this book (the 21st), our hero has only aged about five years and is living in 1988.  The downside to this is that it must be awfully hard for Sue Grafton to find new things to write about when fleshing out the life of Kinsey.  It doesn’t help when the character is a bit of a loner and an introvert.

What Sue Grafton starting doing a few books ago, was to tell these stories a bit differently.  In addition to seeing the world through the eyes of Kinsey, we’re allowed to visit other scenes with other characters that were told in third person.  Some of scenes happen decades ago.  This can be confusing to some of the faithful, especially those who aren’t a big fan of change.  I find these diversions welcome, however, and as blasphemous as it may sound, I almost enjoy these third person scenes better than the familiar ones with Kinsey.  I guess I feel I already know Kinsey well enough to keep reading about Quarter Pounders and her black all-purpose dress over and over.

For this book, Kinsey is approached by a young man who is convinced that he witnessed a burial of a kidnapping victim by a couple of thugs.  Problem is, this alleged event happened about twenty years ago when this guy was only in Kindergarten.  It seems a bit of a stretch, but Kinsey does take on the case and she does start to slowly put some pieces together.  I wouldn’t think such as a task would be quite this easy in real life.  As mentioned, we’re allowed to go back in time to the 1960s when the kidnapping actually happened, and we witness, first hand, many of the main players.  I really enjoyed the book, but thought, in retrospect, that it did seem quite unbelievable.

Of course, Grafton (or maybe Kinsey?) still has a bad problem of being overly descriptive.  Many readers have complained (and I concur) that these stories simply have too much detail when describing the scenery, the food, the color of the person’s hair, the shape of the person’s lips, and on and on and on.  Grafton could easily cut about 25% of the book without all of these unnecessary details.  Then, we still read about Kinsey’s everyday activities, regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with the case being solved.  I get a little tired of the 95 year old landlord, the Hungarian owner of the restaurant, the ever present failed romances, etc. etc.

This book takes us on a side detour of Kinsey’s long lost relatives (who, not surprisingly, she doesn’t really want any contact with) that she has only recently discovered.  It seems as though Kinsey was raised by an Aunt after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was about five years old.  For years, her Aunt was her only relative that she knew still existed.  So a lot of unnecessary drama in this area as well is featured within the pages.  Cut all of this out, and you could shave another 25%.

I’m guessing book publishers operate under the assumption that “more is better” and they can get more revenue from a 400 page book as opposed to a 200 page book, so the stories do seem a bit long.  It’s still a very, quick, enjoyable read however, and I applaud Grafton for taking a few new steps to try to keep things fresh.

Even though the story is a bit silly, I found the overall experience very enjoying and would recommend this book to all lovers of Kinsey Milhone.  As I’m writing this, Sue Grafton has written two newer Kinsey Milhone books that I have not read yet, and I’m hoping she continues with her new found method of story telling.