R is for Ricochet (2005)

By Sue Grafton
What I shame this book wasn’t “C is for Corpse” (an earlier Sue Grafton novel) so I could make a clever joke about what the novel really should have been called. I can think of several derogatory words that begin with C, but none that start with an R. The best I can think of off the top of my head is “R is for Ratshit”, which is kind of cheating.

Yes, I was less than impressed with this latest effort by Sue Grafton in her alphabetically-themed adventures of her heroine Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator. Why? Because it really is INCREDIBLY DULL. And Kinsey is also INCREDIBLY DULL. This is meant to be a thriller detective novel – what do I care whether Kinsey goes jogging, unless something interesting happens along the way? What do I care about the romantic problems suffered by her 80-year old neighbour? What do I care about the precise details of her outfit? Well, I’ll tell you – NOTHING. This book really made me suspicious that the whole female-private-eye genre is nothing more than Mills and Boon in disguise – the word frisson even lurked in one sentence, ready to shock the unwary reader believing she was reading a hard-nosed feminist text. Okay okay, maybe that’s going a bit far, Kinsey is certainly much more liberated than the average Mills and Boon heroine, BUT THE AVERAGE MILLS AND BOON NOVEL IS MORE INTERESTING THAN THIS. Maybe I was just crabby when I read this novel…perhaps if I’d been a fan of the whole series right from “A is for Aardvarkshit” (not the real title) I would be more enthusiastic about the adventures (or not) of Kinsey Millhone. Gee, I can’t wait for “Z is for Zebrashit” to come out…

The only interesting thing about this novel is that it is set in the 1980s, Grafton deciding not to age her characters in real time. And that’s only interesting for its novelty value – how many other novels do you know deliberately set in the 1980s? Pity Grafton didn’t chuck in a bit more Duran Duran and Milli Vanilli – that could have spiced things up a bit.

Rating: 3 out of 10
Only in recognition of the effort it takes to actually write a novel. For die-hard Kinsey fans only.