Q is for Quarry

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: C is for crappy
Review: I read a lot. I enjoy mysteries. After finally getting around to reading a book by Sue Grafton, I have to say that I'm utterly disappointed. This was my first, (and last, thank you very much), Sue Grafton novel. It was boring, contrived, and PREDICTABLE. At some point, (I'm not exactly sure, but it could have been when Grafton was trying in vain to make Kinsey's estrangement from her family a viable sub-plot), I started rooting for all of the main characters to be killed. I have never disliked 'the good guys' as much as I did when reading this novel. Hey, here's a cop that drinks and smokes too much. Naw, shucks ma'm - that's not cliche! In fact, the entire book was one, long, ridiculous cliche. Ah, but enough of this. I've wasted too much time reading this horrible book to write any more. Do yourself a favor - don't read this book.

Rating:
Summary: not great, but typically entertaining
Review: I've read all of these except the new one, "R", at this point. Obviously, I like them. I think "Q Is For Quarry" is a perfectly respectable specimen of the series, if not one of the best.

As is happening more and more often, Kinsey spends most of the book far from Santa Teresa, this time in a small town near the Arizona border. This location is better executed than the small California town in "N Is For Noose," I think, though there seems to be less of an effort to produce a sense of local colour. There's more just a feeling of isolation, of being stranded in the desert, which works for these characters.

As also often happens in these books, the last few pages, in which there is a sudden outbreak of action and danger and the perpetrator stands revealed, are not really satisfying or convincing. And there are a few scenes involving Kinsey's landlord Henry, who has a new girlfriend, and his sister-in-law the Hungarian cook Rosie, apparently intended as comic relief, which I didn't like at all. Luckily, Grafton abandons this stuff early on.

The meat of the book, as far as I'm concerned, consists of Kinsey's interactions with a variety of ordinary unhappy people in ordinary American settings, credibly described. I get the feeling that Grafton can write this stuff in her sleep, but I enjoy reading it. Her friends and co-workers the unhealthy older ex-cops also provide some reasonably interesting interaction that doesn't detract from the story.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I have read and loved almost all of the alphaget mysteries (with the exception of "P is for Peril"). This one was excruciatingly boring. I agree with the reviewers who've complained about too much mention of fast food. The book should have been named "Q is for Quarter Pounder."

Rating:
Summary: Q Was Great! I Thought it Was One of the Best!!
Review: I couldn't believe some of the negative reviews on this book as I thought it was one of Grafton's better ones.

This time, Kinsey is doing some investigating for two old and ill friends of hers, Dolan and Stacey. They are retired cops and never were able to solve a mystery of a "Jane Doe" that happened so many years back. Who was the girl, and above all, who killed her? Kinsey of course gets involved in this whole scenario, and pulls out all of the stops investigating every little corner.

She starts with schools and dentists to try to find out who "Jane Doe" really was. As her probing continues, she gets more and more concrete facts together, and then becomes suspicous of people during her travels for these facts.

Of course, toward the end, (I don't want to spoil it), Kinsey gets too close to the real killer, and just might get herself into a bad situation she may not be able to get out of without a struggle.

The question is, did Justine, an old friend help in the murder? Or was it Pugee, Johnny Miracle, or Cornell? Kinsey knows it's one of the three. And one of these guys are chasing Kinsey toward the end.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good book; the mystery is....umm boring.
Review: I'm a big fan of the series, but I think it ran out of gas after "H." I've struggled through all of the books from "I" and beyond, but this one was the worst. Why? For 350 pages, it's a thin book - thin on plot, thin on story, and thin on characters. I can't figure out why the book needed 350 pages to tell this story. Maybe if she had a better editor (or better story)?

By the end of the book, I could not have cared less about the unfortunate victim or any of the characters. Kinsey is the same (which is fine), but the mystery was so uninvolving, it took me three weeks to read this book. I have no idea where this series is going, but after all these years, it can only get better. Right?

Rating:
Summary: Like Kinsey Milhone
Review: It's taken me a while to cozy up to Kinsey, but I'm there now. Kinsey is sharp, but has a definite edge to her personality. I haven't always been sure I like her, but she's a great detective and, though she often finds herself in a bind while solving a crime, she manages cleverly to get herself out of what ever fix she's in. Haven't read R is for Ricochet yet, but have it on my Christmas list.

Rating:
Summary: Better than usual
Review: Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series is a long-running string of private eye novels, among the first with a female protagonist. The author's been doing this for a quarter century now, and she's gotten very good at satisfying her fans, but she's only very rarely truly surprising in her plots or characters. This book is different, not because the plot itself is unusual, but because it's based on reality.

A retired coroner and several police detectives in Santa Barbara presented this case to Grafton several years ago: a young woman was stabbed to death and left in a quarry below a highway. No one ever established her identity, let alone getting any serious leads as to her killer, and there's been no new information in the case in the years since.

In the book, fictional characters take up the quest to at least identify the victim, if not the killer, in this case. Two retired policemen who found the body in the first place, and have been haunted by the case ever since, hire Kinsey Millhone to assist them in looking into things, but of course the two of them fade (health problems intervene) and Kinsey winds up searching for her identity, and eventually that of her killer, by herself.

I enjoyed this book, and the realistic aspect of the plot, in that it's based on a real incident, was frankly a hook. I'm curious to know if they have made any progress in the case since the book was written.

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Mystery
Review: I got the book-on-tape of Q is for Quarry. And I really enjoyed it. This is the first Sue Grafton novel I have listened to or read.

I really liked the fact that the story if built on a real unsolved murder mystery. For me that makes the story all the more interesting. And it is wonderful to think that a novel would do a good deed by helping to solve a murder.

I totally enjoyed the character of Kinsey. She is an interesting character as she goes about investigating her leads. I enjoyed how she shows concern for the people she interviews about the musrder. And how she shows a caring attitude toward the murder victim. The two grouchy older cops she works with, Dolan and Oliphant make for interesting characters. The humor tidbits added in about all the fast food they eat really add alot to the story. All in all, I find Sue Grafton's characters very true to life.

I really enjoyed this novel, and will be reading more of Sue Grafton's writings.


Rating:
Summary: A real cold case file
Review: Sue Grafton wrote this book in part to revieve interest in a Jane
Doe found in the locale of her books. In fiction she gives purpose to the lives of two old cop friends. You get a sense of the long hours chasing small details to a literal dead end