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"H" Is for Homicide

"H" Is for Homicide

List Price: $23.95
Your Price: $16.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sue Grafton does it again
Review: Someone once told me that Sue Grafton's book were for women only. Well, he could not have been any more wrong. The Alphabet series is a wonderful series of books and I have read A through H at this point and will continue until I get to the end.

This time, Kinsey gets involved in investigating claims to an insurance company that seem fraudulent and she ends up infiltrating an insurance fraud gang as a result. It is Kinsey Millhone and Sue Grafton at their best. Don't Miss it! I loved it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: H is for Hostage, not Homicide
Review: From the title and the early entry of a dead body, the reader thinks that Kinsey is going to set out to solve a homicide. However, she gets tangled up in a most unusual situation, as a virtual hostage in a Latino run auto insurance fraud ring. This is the only alphabet book I have read where Kinsey is not working for a client, and I guess this is part of the reason I thought this book was sub-par, by Sue Grafton standards. There is little mention of the usual Santa Teresa characters. Even so, this book was an easy page turner, as all other alphabet books are. If this is your first Millhone mystery, don't worry. Most of them are much, much better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Really Disappointed
Review: I am new to this series of books and am reading them in order. I really enjoyed A through G, but H is a real disappointment. I simply do not like Kinsey in this one. She comes across as a bit stupid here. I'm surprised at her willingness to break the law. For example, she hits the female cop since this will get her arrested and she'll be able to stay close to Bibianna. What?! Or how about when she's with Raymond looking for potential accidents and she VOLUNTEERS to drive at one point. Then when she causes her first accident she feels a "thrill." Who is this person? What I really found ridiculous was the chapter with Dolan and Santos filling Kinsey in on what's going on and what they want her to do, and then low and behold, she inexplicably gets bailed out before she's supposed to. I hope the next books in this series that I read are a whole lot better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intriguing
Review: This is the first Kinsey Millhone book I read (due to availability) so I still consider it the best. While investigating for the insurance company she shares office space with, Kinsey meets up with an old schoolmate. The case is insurance fraud, and the story kept me interested not only in this book, but the entire series.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Femal PI Extraordinaire
Review: Okay, it's been a few years since Sue Grafton wrote this book and I'm finally getting around to reading it and making commentary. Having been caught up in John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, and James Patterson, I am just now discovering the alphabet series of mysteries written by Grafton. Her use of a feisty female PI is refreshing, and so far none of her stories have been boring.

In H is for Homicide, Kinsey finds herself caught up in an undercover investigation of insurance fraud and spends time, virtually as a hostage, in the LA barrios. She's tough and manages to solve the mystery and save her hide. Also, in this book, there is an interesting twist at the end that is a bit unbelievable, but adds interest to the story.

Great read. Grafton never disappoints.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Weakest of the 10 I've Read
Review: I finally gave Grafton's "alphabet" series featuring Kinsey Millhone a try with "P Is For Peril" a year or two ago, when it was the newest of the series. I liked "P", and I've since been working my way through the rest, starting with "A" -- I've now reached "I."

I think "H Is For Homicide" is the weakest I've read. Much of the book has Kinsey undercover, living with some crooks and auto insurance fraud artists in Los Angeles. The plot doesn't seem to advance very quickly in these segments, and Kinsey's acerbic observations begin to pall. We're left with a generally static narrative of fairly pointless minor incidents among uninteresting, vaguely threatening people. Kinsey's better when she's rushing around among a variety of mainly middle class specimens, observing their tastes and foibles, in my opinion.

The good news is that "I Is For Innocent" was a welcome return to form.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not Too Bad-Could Have Been A Little More Interesting
Review: In this book, Kinsey Millhone plays a cover-up investigator so she can see for herself, this deranged killer who not only kills but commits insurance fraud as well. He is after money and this is how he tags his victims.

The story takes Kinsey through bars, hospitals, and all else to try and nail this deranged man to put him away for good. The book
is full of violent chases and Kinsey goes to jail at one point for trying to help Bibianna, the victim at the killer's hands.

I thought the book was okay, but not the very best.Good enough to stick with it and see what happens.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Insurance fraud
Review: When private investigator Kinsey Millhone returns home after doing a consumer investigation, she is saddened to learn that one of her friends from California Fidelity Insurance has been killed. Kinsey has office space in the C.F. building and the dead man was an employee there. In the meantime, she is checking on insurance fraud cases, and suddenly the murder and her investigation begin to merge. What follows is a book-long wild ride into the underworld in the company of a young hustler named Bibianna Diaz. She spends an evening in a bar named the Meat Locker and things get only worse after that. Kinsey's and Bibianna's lives are threatened as the facts of the insurance fraud becomes clear. This is another good read in a dependable series.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hurrah for Kinsey Millhone
Review: I love Sue Grafton's work. She has created a wonderful set of characters led by Kinsey Milhone, Private Investigator. In this novel Kinsey is investigating insurance fraud and takes her job seriously enough to pose as a hooker in order to get close to the hooker who will lead her to solving the case. This book is as usual a fast paced thriller.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You have to read it twice
Review: This one largely takes place in the Los Angeles barrio where Kinsey is (kind of) undercover investigating insurance fraud and murder for the California Indemnity Company. It's the last one in the series to have a major CIC connection.
You have to re-read this after you've finished because a final three-word sentence stands the whole plot on its head. An even better reason for re-reading is to savor Grafton's English prose style. When she gets a whole building to describe she slightly prolongs things too much, but I love descriptions like this one, of a garage "The late afternoon sun slanted onto the cracked concrete floor in tawny yellow stripes. The air smelled of oil, old tires. and hot metal."


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