Sunday Synopsis

D Is For Deadbeat by Sue Grafton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sue Grafton did a pretty good job on this fourth book in the alphabet series. I'm a little OCD about reading series in order, so, although these books have been out for years, I've only recently picked them up.

The protagonist is Kinsey Milhone, a private investigator who lives alone in a garage apartment. She runs her own PI business. Kinsey is visited by a man who has recently been released from prison who has an odd request to locate the son of his victims and give him a cashier's check worth tens of thousands. Daggett had been serving time for a conviction for killing a car load of people when he was drunk. He was a generally unlikable guy. Where did he get the money for this? And why doesn't he just give it to the survivor himself?

That's not even the biggest mystery because someone wants Daggett dead. In fact, a lot of people want him dead. Who is the most likely perpetrator? It's not who you think it is, although who you think it is will change a number of times. Was it his so-called "wife," the one who he unlawfully married because he was already married? Or the survivors of his crime? Or his "friend" whose half-brother was actually one of the victims? Or someone completely different?  There is no shortage of suspects.

In the end, the mystery is solved, but I didn't like the way it ended. However, I admire Grafton for the type of ending she wrote. It was not the typical, "And they lived happily ever after." I actually liked this one better than the previous book in the series. Complex characters, an intriguing storyline, and a few twists make this book worth reading.

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