I always want to read Sue Grafton's books, because I want to see what she's going to do next. It's an amazing goal to write a twenty-six book series, and I want to see each step.
When I first started reading these books, I wondered how Kiney Mulhone, the private investigator at the center of these books, would ever physically survive. In the first of these books, she suffered so much physical injury through her work that I didn't think she would be realistically able to continue her work.
After a while Grafton eased off on the action, and it became more about Milhone's internal process. I think that was probably my favorite phase of the series so far, where it had to do more with Kinsey's emotional life, how she tried to resolve her family issues and successfully navigate her intimate relationships. I enjoyed her interactions with her neighbor, Henry. I wanted to see what was going to happen to her as a person as she continued to investigate her cases.
It seems that in the past few books, Grafton has wanted to expand her writing universe. These later books have been more about the characters of the cases than they have been about Kinsey. Kinsey's role in the books have been diminished to mainly passages about her detective work. For me, this has always been the weakest part of the books. I have the impression that Grafton does a lot of research on how private investigators do their job, but sometimes to me, the research reads more like a book report rather than being integrated into the story. Some of Kinsey's actions in this book also made me wonder. She bought a flashy car, which she admitted hampered her ability to do her work. There were times when she was unable to get a license plate. She just seems to be more inexperienced than I would think that she would and should be at this point in her career.
And yet, despite my complaints, I will keep reading this series. I am very interested to see how she is developing these different muscles by writing about these criminal worlds. I like it that she is continuing her work wtih integrity. She is working hard to continue to make the books interesting and new. I just want more Kinsey. I would like to see more of how her character would develop from here to Z.
