U is for undertow: Sue Grafton
Posted 20th January 2010 at 11:05 AM by Ezteq
lol poor sue, I don't think she planned ahead when she thought up this series. I mean the first few (a = alibi, b = body, c = corpse or something like that) the titles actually had something to do with the story but now she's gotten to the dark side of the alphabet she had to make some tenuous link by having her main character gazing out to the ocean and thinking about an undertow Oo
Anyway the title aside, I rather enjoyed this book. If you don't know the set up the series is about a female PI called Kinsey Millhone how lives in california and is set in the 1980s, so there's no technical stuff to deal with but kids reading it might need a dictionary to look up things like microfische and index cards because I'm sure they no longer use them lol.
The plot (as usual) has two elements, theres the crime then kinseys personal life, the crime in this case was a kidnapping that happened in the 60s and a witness comes to kinsey after remembering something that may solve the case the story flips and flaps back and forward via flash backs and we follow Kinseys efforts to track down the main players in her time; then the personal bit is about her family situation (she thought she was all alone in the world then found that she actually has relations!...sound familiar?) and her dilemma about whether or not to actually let them into her life.
Again, I have to point out that this is not great literature, it's entertaining and well written but if you are lookign for a plot that will have you tearing your hair out and losing sleep over then go elsewhere my friend, but still it aint bad and the characters are well written, kinsey is always interesting to read about because she is as close to a 'real'person as I think any author has got in a series like this, she is just a normal gal doing a job that sometimes gets her into difficult situations.
And after reading books where the action/drama/comedy/romance/horror whatever is played to the hilt, it really makes a nice change to read about something small and real...ish
Anyway the title aside, I rather enjoyed this book. If you don't know the set up the series is about a female PI called Kinsey Millhone how lives in california and is set in the 1980s, so there's no technical stuff to deal with but kids reading it might need a dictionary to look up things like microfische and index cards because I'm sure they no longer use them lol.
The plot (as usual) has two elements, theres the crime then kinseys personal life, the crime in this case was a kidnapping that happened in the 60s and a witness comes to kinsey after remembering something that may solve the case the story flips and flaps back and forward via flash backs and we follow Kinseys efforts to track down the main players in her time; then the personal bit is about her family situation (she thought she was all alone in the world then found that she actually has relations!...sound familiar?) and her dilemma about whether or not to actually let them into her life.
Again, I have to point out that this is not great literature, it's entertaining and well written but if you are lookign for a plot that will have you tearing your hair out and losing sleep over then go elsewhere my friend, but still it aint bad and the characters are well written, kinsey is always interesting to read about because she is as close to a 'real'person as I think any author has got in a series like this, she is just a normal gal doing a job that sometimes gets her into difficult situations.
And after reading books where the action/drama/comedy/romance/horror whatever is played to the hilt, it really makes a nice change to read about something small and real...ish
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