Evidence

E Is For Evidence, Sue Grafton

I’ve meant to try a female private eye novel for a long time now, and I decided far in advance that when I did I’d try Sue Grafton first, because I’ve read such good notices for her work all these years.

(I have no solid reasoning for passing on the female private eye novel all this time-- I’ve often been attracted, in life, to women who were hard-bitten, hard-drinking loners – but I suspect the last decade-plus of Janet Evanovich might have caused me some additional hesitation, even though I would not mistake those novels for the work of Grafton or any other of the female PI originators of the ‘80s.)

I enjoyed E Is For Evidence. Kinsey Millhone works in the oceanside southern California hamlet where she grew up, not one of the rich inhabitants, before becoming a cop for a time. Well-acquainted with local mores and local family histories, she has something of the small-town sheriff about her, and leverages her life-long knowledge of the people in the course of her investigation.

This is the type of mystery novel where milieu and character dominate, and Grafton does a very good job on both counts; I’ll have to try another book in the series….

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