Q is for Quarry

Rating:
Summary: One of the better one's in this series!
Review: "O Is For Quarry" by Sue Grafton is one of the better books in this series. I know you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Grafton Ever!
Review: Perhaps it was the research that Sue Grafton did on an actual Jane Doe case, but this book is her most compelling. One of Grafton's greatest gifts is her ability to draw characters that are both eccentric and real and this book is full of those. Her descriptions of the area, the sky, the weather, and the feelings of the era are superb. She is a wonderful writer. She's the best of the mystery writers today.

My wife reads aloud by the fire as we pass the cold late fall evenings in Coastal Maine. So often, the popular mystery writers disappoint in their effort to pump out book after book. Sue Graften and her character Kinsey are always a pleasure, but this book was especially welcome. We were sad to see it end. It's Grafton at her best and she is getting better and better.

Sue Grafton's closing description of the real case and what went into her research for this book was fascinating. It added so much reality to the story we had just finished.

Thank you, Sue Grafton, for all of these wonderful Kinsey books. We are grateful. Your characters are real, funny and wonderful and you hit the jackpot with this one.

Rating:
Summary: Q is from QUARRY
Review: I found G is for Gumshoe--then-wanted to start at the beginning....and picked up 'A---and now Q'. I blew through Q at 'double-time' my usual Kinsey speed. I'm an adult adoptee-with no firsthand knowlege of my birthmom-so feel a special kinship with her...and Q--was just what the doctor ordered-for my Kinsey 'fix'--I can't wait to see where Ms. Grafton goes next! Her characters are all my buddies-I have a 'special' propensity for 'old guys'and count them among some of my closest compadres. I spent summers in Montecito and grew up in L.A. County-so seeing street names of environs that are 'home' to me-even though my memory is dim just adds to the already Great webs she weaves.
PLEASE! Just 'keep on-keepin' on!!'

Rating:
Summary: She tried...she really, really tried.
Review:

I've been a Kinsey Millhone fan since the first page of "A is for Alibi." I love her, warts and all, and eagerly await each new adventure.

Imagine my disappointment when I finally finished Q IS FOR QUARRY. Like some other reviewers, it took me almost a week to finish the fiction-based-on-fact story of a long ago, unsolved murder in Santa Teresa (Santa Barbara). I felt the descriptions were way too detailed and I, too, grew weary of descriptions of the inside of bars, houses, shops and garages. It was as if no editing took place....that every thought, word, scene was left in from the first draft.

What saved this story for me was to finally find out something about Kinsey's family. Those parts, while at times tedious, were worth the effort. I hope Grafton will pursue this sub-plot in future volumes.

I admire Grafton for being able to sustain a series through 16 books. She and Kinsey can survive one stumble.

Rating:
Summary: One of Grafton's best
Review: With seventeen novels to her credit, inevitably readers will like some better than others. Q is for Quarry is a new take on a familiar theme.
Two aging cops, friends of Kinsey Milhone, want to solve a fifteen year old puzzle: a girl's body was found in Lompoc, California.The body was never identified and the murder never solved.

Grafton keeps the suspense flowing more than she has in some books. The action doesn't stop. It's a straightforward mystery and an alert reader will pick up clues -- although not necessarily identify the killer.

We learn a little more about Kinsey's long-lost family. Her two partners -- retired cops -- are fighting life-threatening illnesses and one discovers the joy of junk food. Grafton's strength comes in plot and setting. She describes everyone the heroine meets in excruciating detail. Outward appearances hold clues to personality, as we realize from the great portrait painters.

Kinsey has her usual quirks: she dresses down and she lives small and cheap. Here she's totally unattached and she likes it that way. She doesn't age and she's still using a typewriter sometime in the 80's. I must admit I kept looking for anachronism: were Sauconys the shoe of choice back then? I must admit I wish the author had aged Kinsey and brought her into the present, so we could get a sense of depth by growing with her.

This is a female tough detective story. We don't get into the deeper nuances of personality, as we do with heroines of Nevada Barr or Margaret Maron -- or even Marcia Muller. Spenser, Robert Parker's hero, is more sensitive. You get an old-fashioned quick read with no great lessons about life -- just the thrill of the chase and a great relief, at the end, that your own world isn't populated by the people Kinsey encounters in her frequent brushes with murder witnesses.

Rating:
Summary: wait for the paperback
Review: I am generally an avid Kinsey fan, eagerly awaiting her next adventure. Unfortunately, she has very little adventure in this plodding, time wasting effort. The book never drew me in, and took far too much effort to describe every little detail of every place the characters were. The fact that it was inspired by a true story is not enough to make this a worthwhile investment of your time. I am a detective book freak, and have read thousands of novels, this is one that I should have skipped. However, given her track record, I am still going to give the next Kinsey novel a try, but that's a fan for you.

Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Review From A First Time Sue Grafton Reader
Review: For many reasons, it is always difficult for a new reader to start with a new novel in the middle of a well-established series by a best selling author. Thus it is important for readers of this review to understand that I have no background in the letters of this series from A to P. In fact, despite my wife's high praise for several of the earlier books, I had decided that I was already overwhelmed enough by the output of several other of my favorite authors writing in the mystery/dectective genre (I recommend that you sample Robert Parker and John Lescroart if you have not) and did not need to try to catch up with a series on it's seventeenth book. However, my curiosity combined with the hook of this novel being based on an actual twenty-three year old unsolved murder case (of a still unidentified victim) stimulated my interest and I decided to read the book after my wife had finished it.

In summary, there was much that I liked about the book, but overall I was mildly disppointed and that is the reason for my rating. First, the positives - I liked Kinsey Millhone a lot (perhaps partly because I am a runner and fast food addict myself), and felt that Sue Grafton did a more than adequate job of providing some summary of Kinsey's character development and personal history as the series had developed but also cleverly weaving in new background info for long time readers. I also liked Lieutenant Con Dolan and Detective Stacey Oliphant, and thought that the personal detail and interplay among the characters was interesting and fun. And I thought that as a pure police procedural with all the intimate real life detail that is often involved in dectective work the book was first rate and highly recommend it to readers who enjoy such stories.

So, why only three stars? First it was a little slow moving for me, not too long, just too little true suspense and uncertainty. I didn't really get involved until roughly the last one hundred pages. Usually I tend to read such books almost nonstop, my wife was amazed that I spaced this one over several days. As I realized that this was not a book that I could unreservedly and enthusiastically recommend to my friends and thought about my reaction after finishing it, I think it was more complex than the lack of action. First, perhaps my expectations were just too high and since my relationship as a reader with Kinsey was not that of an old friend, this was not a visit that I started with a lot of background comfort. But, most importantly, my conclusion and my warning to other readers is that in retrospect what most excited me about the book before reading it was in the end bound to disappoint me. That is, here is a true murder case that we all have a lingering hope can still be solved, or at the least the victim identified. Yet, of course, when you finish the book the one thing of which you are sure is that none of this speculation is what really happened; we are at the end of the story but in truth there is no conclusion. I wanted to know what really happened and I did't. I did not anticipate or initially understand this outcome, but preparing to write this review made me realize that was the case for me.

Despite my disappointment, kudos to the author for her effort, and we can all hope that her publicity of the case and work with a forensic artist to provide a facial reconstruction of the actual victim and publicity in connection with a bestseller will lead to some progress in her identification. And, now I will read at least one more Kinsey Millhone book to see how much I enjoy meeting her again as she usesher detective skills to solve a fictional case where my desire for the "real truth" won't get in the way

Rating:
Summary: WITH THIS READING KINSEY SPEAKS!
Review: Author Sue Grafton and voice performer Judy Kaye are a premium pair - both topnotch in their fields.

Actress Kaye, who has recorded all of Grafton's best-selling alphabetically determined tales, unfailingly gives high energy readings, inhabiting the fast-talking, sometimes sarcastic personality of the author's heroine, Kinsey Millhone.

"Q Is For Quarry," the 17th in this series, takes its inspiration from a murder case that has gone unsolved since 1969. An unidentified white female became another in the lengthening list of "Jane Does" when her decomposed remains were found near Highway 1 in California.

It is known she was young, and her hands were tied. Her throat was slashed.

Thanks to Grafton's interest in the case, there have recently been renewed efforts on the part of law enforcement officials. After the exhumation of the body a forensic artist did the facial reconstruction that is shown in the closing pages of the book and on the audio editions. Hopefully, someone will see this face, remember, and respond.

As with other Grafton tales this is a can't-put-down pulse pounder laced with humor provided by two retired policemen who both help and hinder the investigation. Icing on the cake is when we hear Kaye's reading it is as if Kinsey speaks directly to us.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: Q is For Quite Good!
Review: Kinsey Milhone is up to her old tricks...eating at Rosie's, visiting with Henry and jogging in the wee hours. This time she has taken on two old "gentlemen" and they search for the killer of a young girl. The case is "cold" from 1969. The two men are a lesson plan in how not to live. Drinking, smoking and eating badly...they are a hoot. Kinsey's Aunt and cousin have entered her life and her grandmother looms large. as with all of the alphabet books, it's a delight. Kinsey is an original character and after all these years I feel she's a friend.

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing story that will have you wanting to read "R"
Review: Americans have had a long long love affair with Kinsey Millhone, private investigator. The Sue Grafton creation has graced bestseller lists since her A IS FOR ALIBI premiere 16 letters ago. While other detectives have moved on to cell phones and Internet searches, Kinsey's still hacking away on pay phones and typewriters, her life frozen in the 1980s. She's a 37-year-old PI who comes pretty close to hardboiled, if that's possible in Santa Teresa, California. She's proven remarkably durable through books that tend to blend together in a nonetheless satisfying mix.

If you haven't already heard, here's the lowdown on Kinsey. Orphaned at age 5, divorced twice by her mid-20s and happily on her own these days save for dinners with her feisty octogenarian landlord, Kinsey pretty much does as she pleases. In Q IS FOR QUARRY, she accepts an assignment from a pair of near-retired police officers, Lieutenant Con Dolan and Detective Stacey Oliphant, who want to reopen a Jane Doe case left languishing for the last 18 years. Quicker than you can say "the butler did it," Kinsey¹s enmeshed in another adventure. The trio's legwork eventually leads them to the tiny town of Blythe, where the auto-shop-owning McPhee family becomes the center of the inquiry. Once the body has been identified, Kinsey sets about cracking the case, with another fatality to deal with along the way.

What¹s grown familiar about Kinsey's tales --- well, aside from her frequent forays to McDonald¹s, refusal to accept her recently discovered extended family and general bull-headedness --- is the utter everydayness to them. Grafton doesn't have the gift for words of a Jonathan Franzen or a Sandra Cisneros, but she'll detail them to the death. We literally watch Kinsey's every move during the seven to 10 days it usually takes her to solve a case.

We're there when she brushes her teeth or brushes off suitors. We watch as she dresses for dinner or drools in her sleep. Unlike your garden-variety detective, Kinsey does laundry and "uses the facilities," as Grafton puts it. It's about as close to a slice-of-life as you can get.

The mystery element is always interesting in the Millhone books, which are clearly plot-driven. Many of the minute details Grafton includes as Kinsey observations turn out to be important; for example, the prison-standard tattoos on a lying inmate's arm. As Kinsey spends yet another few days in a strange town (she tends to frequent fleabag hotels in cities with 10 or so streets), she makes her share of friends and enemies. What helps keep this book amusing is the interaction between the introverted Kinsey and the two older detectives, both of them ill but still blustery. Their old-married-couple interaction has a true ring to it.

Grafton spends just enough time cracking Jane Doe's identity, not drawing it out too long. Once we know who the girl was, the suspect list narrows, but not by much. One problem I've always had with these books is that there sometimes aren't enough clues to turn you on to the killer --- "clues" that become clear only in retrospect or were never given to the reader in the first place. It¹s not really unsatisfying, but it is mildly annoying. Kinsey always ends up getting her man (or woman) in a bloody, life-endangering climax. Grafton cleans up the details in the books' epilogues.

What's unique about this book is that an actual corpse, an unsolved Santa Barbara homicide from 1969, inspired it. Though Grafton explains in the author's note that the characters are completely fiction, much of the material evidence is not. It's the first time Grafton's worked such a nonfiction angle in her book, and the story turns out intriguingly enough.

Will Kinsey Millhone ever join the cannon of great literary detectives like Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Javert, even Spenser? Nah. But that doesn't make her any less entertaining. Q IS FOR QUARRY satisfies all the Kinsey necessities, with a neatly wrapped finish and sass in between. Here¹s hoping that R is for "Real Soon."

--- Reviewed by Toni Fitzgerald