Rating: 
Summary: Not up to par for Grafton
Review: I was disappointed - although I enjoyed the plot of the story (true Kinsey mystery) the book was too long to support it!! One reason I enjoy Grafton books is they are relatively "crisp" in the plot and the dialog exchanges of the people in it. This book went astray from the plot and the characters several times. I would have enjoyed a shorter version of the same thing!!
Rating: 
Summary: Suspense is good,,,also read Mad Light
Review: This one isnt quite there as past works, it is just a bit slow. The suspense is good if you like that sort of entertainment. Not a sleeper in the least but is a bit sluggish for our day and age as the time frame is before any technology and personality of this 21st century. I would not say that entirely hurts this read but it is predictable from an 80's outlook. Maybe a bit to realistic "as if" the story was based on such a real life happening with a bit of droll character on the part of the offender who does have impact on the way this story is written. I suggest a book that moves much faster and is up to date on this same subject but with a driving message, Mad Light by Maddox
Rating:
Summary: Three and a half stars
Review: Subtitle this one: Kinsey and The Odd Couple. Two ailing elderly cop buddies and Kinsey team up to solve a cold case and identify the remains of a long-dead girl. As always, Grafton writes fluidly; her characterizations are solid; there's plenty of gentle humor. There's just not a whole lot of action, nor are there any great surprises. It's a perfectly pleasant book, certainly engaging, but not entirely compelling.That the narrative is based on an actual, still-unsolved, case is more intriguing than the book itself and the last half-dozen pages detailing the case make for fascinating reading: the stuff of true mystery. While Q isn't up to the level of P, it is none the less good reading--far superior to much of what's out there.
Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Are you sure we aren't on the Zzz's?
Review: In Q is for Quarry, Grafton returns to her character, California P.I. Kinsey Millhone. Set sometime during the 80s (I think - I've never quite been sure what decade Grafton is writing in), Kinsey is enlisted by two retired cops to revisit an 18-year-old mystery: the murder of a young Jane Doe that was never solved and continues to haunt the investigators on the case. Intermingled with the mystery are vignettes of Kinsey's private life, including her stormy relationship with her relatives, a visit with her neighbor, and personal conversations with the Con Dolan and Stacey Oliphant, the two retired police officers working the case with her. Sue Grafton has, indeed, done it again - unfortunately. I suppose it's understandable that, after 17 letters of the alphabet, the format is going to get tired, but I'm still highly disappointed in this installment of the Millhone series. The "mystery" is boring. Kinsey has become preachy. When she's not doing detective work, she's busy preaching to both Dolan and Oliphant about their unhealthy lifestyles. I could see from the beginning of the book that Dolan would end up in the hospital with heart problems - Grafton just about nailed up a neon sign that screamed it throughout the book. Kinsey's dry wit and cynical view on life is no longer amusing, and her detective skills, when compared to some other perennial favorite characters like Stephanie Plum, Goldy Schulz, and J. P. Beaumont, are no longer impressive. Kinsey, still stuck living in the 80s, has long been surpassed by far more interesting and better written books. Sorry, Ms. Grafton, I just don't know if I can stick out the rest of the alphabet with you. Note: The mystery is, in fact, based on a real unsolved case that Grafton has managed to reopen. However, Grafton's fictional solution to the case is ultimately unsatisfying and uncreative. While basing the book on a real case will help her hype factor, it does nothing for me. It only makes the book more unpleasant - I don't really like reading about a real murder victim... I can turn on the news any day and hear about those.
Rating:
Summary: Q is For Quarry
Review: Having read all of the Grafton books, I would say this is one of her better efforts. Perhaps, because it is based on an actual event. The reader will guess the culprits before Kinsey does, but she is busy learning about her own family back ground and maybe not paying enough attention to the investigation. She seems very trusting of the female characters she encounters which seems out of character for her.The two older policemen are an intersting addition to the book and very believable in their quest to close the file on this case. The book does not move as fast as other Grafton books, there is a lot of information about desert area in which the story is set, which is immaterial to the story; but interesting to know.
Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: Oh my, I am on book number 17 of the Kinsey Milhone series but I don't recognize where I am. I have left the land of mischieveous, tantalizing and light-amusement to a libre-noir. Toto, we've left Kansas! I have loved each and every one of the first 16 of Grafton's alphabet but Q is for Quarry is just plain painful. Grafton describes each character's very breath with excruciating agony. Let's hope R stands for "I Got it Right" once again.
Rating: 
Summary: "Q is for Quarry" worth waiting for
Review: "Q is for Quarry" by Sue Grafton "Q is for Quarry" by Sue Grafton, is the seventeenth in her alphabetical series that began back in 1983 with "A is for Alibi." I think I might have broken some kind of record reading through them when I first discovered her books 3 years ago. I read them as I could get my hands on them...some in sequence and some out of sequence.
On a personal aside, I can't resist a little brag here. When Sue Grafton was in Phoenix on her "P is for Peril" book tour, I got the opportunity to sit in with Debbie Neckel on the interview. In her books there is a Hungarian character named Rosie who owns a little tavern and serves up Hungarian food that is often delicious but sometimes unpronounceable and scary to the uninitiated. And I, having been initiated by real-life Rosies, including my own Grandmother, thought Sue might enjoy some authentic Hungarian recipes for her next book. She really was tickled to get them and was gracious enough to mention my name in the Acknowledgements of "Quarry." I was so excited I thought I'd die!! So that's my little aside, now back to the review.
All of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries can stand alone but it's kind of fun to read them in sequence, especially once you become familiar with her close friends and not so close family. Here again is wonderful series that is a refuge for those who enjoy adventure but cling to the familiar.
And, in that respect, we can indulge our favorite writers when they deviate from their familiar format and try something new...as Sue Grafton has done with "Q." So, while we still have the comfortable ambiance and friendly companions, we have a story that is based on an actual unsolved mystery.
Knowing this made me wonder if the fictional murder would also be left unsolved, in which case the reader would be left with too many questions...too many loose ends at the end. But, I needn't have worried. Grafton is a writer that you can trust; she not only lets you in on all of her clues as the case unfolds, she never pulls suspects out of thin air and always wraps up the case in a reasonable manner. I even figured out one of the clues before Kinsey did! And, since outcomes are so much easier to control in fiction than in life, in "Q" the mystery does get solved.
The event that this story was taken from involved the murder of an unidentified female whose body had been found in a California quarry back in 1969. Although detectives spent many man-hours working on the case, the body was never identified, nor was the killer found. Grafton became fascinated with the idea for her new book and that, in turn, sparked a renewed interest in the case, which eventually led to the body being exhumed. Then a forensic sculpture was brought in to reconstruct a likeness of the victim's face. Photos of the girl appear at the back of the book in hope that someone will be able to identify her, which could lead to a solution of the crime.
Back to "Quarry." In it we find Kinsey Millhone once again narrating her own adventure. She has a way of drawing you in and by page three you feel like you've known her all your life! Kinsey reveals that she is now thirty-eight and while she guards her independence, she is feeling a bit lonely. So, when two old acquaintances decide to look into an 18 year old unsolved mystery, she happily agrees to join them.
Con Doyle and Stacey Oliphant had been partners back when case originally surfaced; now they are both retired and eager to find something to keep their minds alive while nature whittles away at their bodies with all sorts of old age aliments.
The clues take our trio to several small towns near the Arizona border where they interview folks who may have known the victim and thus the murderer. It's always amazing to watch detectives as they work backwards from the little that is known and to see the pieces begin to fall into place and the puzzle takes shape.
In the process, small town secrets are exposed and old wounds are opened. Long forgotten relationships are brought back to mind, rekindling anger and raising tempers to the point where killers generally make that fatal mistake...the mistake that eventually puts them away. And it's her patient, sometimes tedious detective work that allows Kinsey to be in the nail-biting conclusion.
It's at this point we even get a glimpse into what may be the dark side of Sue Grafton...not in the Patricia Caldwell sense but more in the MASH vein... no pun intended. You'll get what I mean when you read it.
As always, throughout her books, fans find themselves smiling at Kinsey's quirks. She loves tiny, closed in places...she's not self-conscious...though she makes few friends, she has a fierce sense of loyalty that is often born of a childhood that suffered great loss...she eats peanut butter and pickle sandwiches...and she gave me the courage to chop unruly chunks out of my own hair when I can't get to the Cut and Curl.
It's one thing to write funny scenes in a story but it's another to keep the humor and tone throughout the entire book, book after book. Grafton has that knack and she's continues to keep us hooked.
If there's any read more satisfying than a well-written mystery, at this point in time, I haven't found it. And for one of the best writers in the genre, Sue Grafton can be relied upon to deliver the goods.
Start with A is for Alibi and read through Q...by then "R" should be just about ready for release.
Maggie Harding[]
Rating:
Summary: MY FIRST GRAFTON DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: EVERY YEAR, I EAGERLY AWAIT ANOTHER ENTRY IN SUE GRAFTON'S ALPHABET SERIES, BUT THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT THIS WAIT ENDED IN DISAPPOITMENT."Q IS FOR QUARRY" DRAGGED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING...IN FACT, IT WAS ALL I COULD DO TO JUST FINISH IT. WHEN IT ENDED, I REALIZED THAT I DIDN'T EVEN CARE WHO THE CULPRITS WERE...I JUST WANTED THE WHOLE THING OVER! I WILL CONTINUE TO BUY ANY BOOKS WRITTEN BY SUE GRAFTON...AS DISAPPOINTED AS I WAS IN THIS ONE, SHE HAS A GREAT TRACK RECORD!
Rating:
Summary: Is Sue Grafton becoming a real-life Jessica Fletcher?
Review: Because Kinsey Millhone is helping two old friends solve an 18-year-old murder, this mystery is more of an exercise in problem-solving than an action-packed drama. And that's OK -- we don't need to see our favorite P.I. get beaten up *every* time she questions someone, do we? As usual, the descriptions here are vivid and the characters are three-dimensional, believable, and suspicious. Our heroes try to unravel the cold-case puzzle even though Real Life Issues of their own keep interfering. What makes this episode even more interesting is discovering that the premise is based on a true crime. Sue Grafton worked with local authorities to examine evidence, pursue leads, and to have an artist create facial replicas of the real Jane Doe whose dead body was dumped in a southern California quarry in 1969. Though the author provides a plausible series of events throughout the course of the book, the actual murder remains a mystery -- as does the identity of the victim. The book ends with photos of the facial reconstruction, in the hopes that someone will recognize the young woman and come forth with information. Gosh, are we in San Jose (aka Santa Teresa), California, or Cabot Cove, Maine??? No matter. It's still a good mystery.
Rating:
Summary: solid but ultimately disappointing
Review: The book's premise is utterly fascinating and heartbreaking, and Grafton does a solid job of fleshing it out. The subplot regarding Kinsey's family was also enjoyable. Overall, however, the book was a bit tedious -- it was very heavy on description, some of which felt like padding. Kinsey's sidekicks -- two retired detectives who are both seriously ill -- were particuarly uninteresting and depressing. If the first five or six books in the series are 5s, I would give this one about a 3 and 1/2.
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