'First there was a phone call from a stranger, then a letter showed up fourteen years after it was sent. That's how I learned I'd made a serious error in judgement and ended up risking my life . . .'
The call comes on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. Last weekend he bought a stack. They had stuff in them Kinsey stuff. For thirty bucks, he'll sell her the lot. Kinsey's never been one for personal possessions, but curiosity wins out and she hands over a twenty (she may be curious but she loves a bargain). What she finds amid childhood memorabilia is an old undelivered letter.
It will force her to re-examine her beliefs about the break-up of her first marriage, about the honour of her first husband, about an old unsolved murder. And it will put her life in the gravest peril.
'Grafton's fans will be thrilled with this knockout Kinsey Millhone mystery . . . One of the very best entries in a long-lived and much-loved series' Publishers Weekly
Wise-cracking, staunchly independent and chronically curious, Grafton's gritty gumshoe, Kinsey Millhone is back. This time, the alphabet series star will take on the toughest case to date: her past. What begins as a random phone call from a "storage space scavenger" (buys the contents of defaulted storage units), leads Kinsey to a box of old papers and personal effects that her ex, Micky Magruder, left behind. Inside, she finds a 15-year-old unsent letter from a bartender that, among other things, reveals her former hubby was having an affair. And she left him because he asked her to lie when he was charged with murder. Although he wasn't convicted, the letter reopens the past and the possibility of foul play--which proves to be a deadly temptation for Ms. Millhone.
Die-hard fans will especially enjoy Kinsey's self-disclosure--something she's infamous for not doing--about her childhood, the fate of her parents and the randy details of her first marriage. She also reveals a very vulnerable and interesting side to her character when her obsessive-compulsive fact-finding is mixed with matters of the heart. A fast, fun read, O is for Outlaw is packed with Grafton's clear, colourful imagery and signature metaphors: "Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered, but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed." This review refers to the hardcover edition of this title.
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Rebekah Warren
