Q is for Quarry

Rating:
Summary: Start at the beginning
Review: This is a series well worth reading in chronological order because you then get the unfolding story of Kinsey Milhone. In this one a lot more about her origins turns up. It's set in 1987 with Kinsey now 36.The action of P is for Peril took place earlier in the same year.(A is for Alibi was published in 1982).
Compared with other Graftons this is more of a police procedural, centering on discovering the identity of an unknown girl whose body had been found 17 years previously.
Although I'm a devoted fan I can understand the objections of those who crtiticize her for slowness. She loves to set every scene in detail, and whenever Kinsey travels from one place to another the journey gets described. For example you get passages like "I parked in the lot in a space marked VISITOR. I locked the car and trotted across the flattened grass to the entrance, pushing through the double glass doors and into the main corridor..." Elmore Leonard would have had his character in and out of that building by now, but I wouldn't want Grafton writing any differently; the result of all that describing is complete and vivid realism.

Rating:
Summary: Q is for Questions unanswered
Review: Grafton starts out with a good plot and quickly loses her thread. This story is based for a moment on a true case. A body of a young woman was found dead in a quarry over 20 yrs ago. She has never been claimed or identified. Compounding the case is in this era, many young people fled their lives for a new start in San Francisco with the flower power. Sadly Grafton spends her yarn so far out, she has a hard time catching the end and wrapping up the story. Kinsey is introduced to her family again, befriends two old time cops and heads off on a road trip. This was not necessary to the story and weighed it down in unnecessary dialogue. The mystery she created around this discovery of the
body was strong and believable. It fit with the time period of the death and the results still affect people's lives today. It seems lately either when an author becomes established or the editor uses a spell check program a lot of editing is left ndone. If this book would of been stripped down to the mystery it would of been a hit. But since I had to read so many passages but family misgivings and people wanting a second chance I lost interest.

Rating:
Summary: Q only made me hungry for R
Review: I don't know what book the naysayers read, but it wasn't the latest offering by Sue Grafton (maybe someone switched books on them) Q is fast-paced (I finished it in 6 hours, typical of a great Grafton book), and thought provoking (who is Jane Doe? and if she's ______ why was she murdered and by whom?) but this is true kof the vast majority of Grafton's books. Pay no attention to the naysayers if you are a big fan of Grafton coz Q is well worth waiting for! Note to new readers: don't start with this book or you won't get the relationships!

Rating:
Summary: Q is every bit as good as O and P, better than I, K, and M
Review: I was intrigued when I read that this book was based on a true story (but the book is purely fiction) But I was unsure until I got into it. I was hooked by page 5 (typical of Grafton) but I stayed hooked--I finished it in 6 hrs (fast even for me). I won't say much more except that I hope to see more of Stacey Oliphant and Con Dolan in R, S, and so on. Here's to hoping R comes out soon.

Rating:
Summary: Q is a Winner.....
Review: It was eighteen years ago that officers Stacey Oliphant and Con Dolan, out on a morning hunting trip, found the decomposing body near the quarry. She was young, white, bound, and stabbed multiple times, and then her throat was slashed. She'd never been identified, her murderer never brought to justice, and the unsolved case has haunted Oliphant and Dolan all these many years. Now, old and sick, and at the end of their respective careers, they want one more shot at solving this Jane Doe homicide, and decide to enlist the help of Santa Teresa private detective, Kinsey Millhone. After hearing the whole story, and reading over the old murder book, Kinsey has to admit she's hooked, packs her duffle, and joins this "odd couple" on what turns out to be quite an intriguing and ultimately dangerous adventure in search of the truth..... Inspired by a still unsolved murder in Santa Barbara County over thirty years ago, Sue Grafton weaves a compelling and suspenseful story. Her well paced plot is filled with clever twists and turns, vivid, laugh-out-loud scenes, and witty and irreverent dialogue. But it's Ms Grafton's brilliant characterizations and delicious descriptions that really make this novel stand out and sparkle, and no one does it better. Q Is For Quarry is the seventeenth mystery in this marvelous alphabet series, and definitely one of the strongest entries. If you're new to Kinsey and company, begin at the beginning with A Is For Alibi and read them all. If you're already a fan, Q is a very satisfying and engaging read that should find itself at the top of your "must read" list.

Rating:
Summary: A return to form
Review: As you can tell from my pseudonym, I'm a huge fan of this series. However, P IS FOR PERIL was a big letdown -- the only Grafton book so far where I kept putting the book down out of boredom, and the ending was terrible. Luckily, Q IS FOR QUARRY is incredibly good, confirming my hope that P was just a fluke. Kinsey is a far more enthusiastic sleuth than she was in P, teaming up with two retired police detectives to find the identity of a long-dead Jane Doe. This book is full of great procedural work, the traditional sly and deadpan Millhone quips and observations, and yes, a real ending. I took it on vacation and read it in two days, enjoying every page of this lengthy book. Now, needless to say, I'm eagerly awaiting R!!

Rating:
Summary: Q Is for Quarry
Review: It was not a book I couldn't put down. There is way too much discription. I don't really care what color dress she wore. The idea it was based on was more interesting than the story.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Grafton
Review: This was an excellent book. I enjoyed the addition of the two retired detectives, their interactions with each other and how they accepted Kinsey and her quirks without question. I thought I had this one figured out until the ending, which was a surprise to me. I look forward to the next book in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Grafton is back on form!
Review: Several years ago a colleague introduced me to the "Alphabet Murders" while we were both trapped at a Faculty Retreat. It proved to be the most long-lasting element of THAT Retreat -I confess to having read all the Sue Grafton I can find since then. In spite of my enthusiasm, I had begun to fear that Kinsey Milhone wasn't going to age well. In the last few books Grafton seemed to spend too much time with peripheral characters &/or Kinsey's difficult family & not enough on the actual mystery. I found myself getting very tired of the Adorable Henry, Henry's Brothers, the Mad Cook, etc. Wisely Grafton chose to ship all of the above off on a cruise for this novel and brought in two new & highly appealing characters in the form of aging & disgruntled police detectives intent on solving an old case that has bothered them professionally for twenty years. In a brand new spin, we find that Milhone/Grafton is actually investigating a REAL unsolved crime that had occurred near Santa Barbara years previously. It is possible that the "reality" of the case is what makes the first half of the book go rather slowly (reality sometimes DOES go slowly) but I didn't really mind, Grafton had given me some interesting new folks to get to know, and Kinsey was grappling more effectively with her past than it seemed she could do in earlier episodes. The second half of the book picks up the pace, perhaps a bit too much. I found the ending a bit forced (no, I WON'T tell you WhoDunnit!) and a bit too tidy, but overall I am back looking forward to R rather than wondering if I can be bothered to make it through the alphabet. A nice read for a cold snowy afternoon or a long car ride!

Rating:
Summary: Two motherless daughters
Review: This is an ambitious book, more satisfying and daring than "P." Kinsey, orphaned at an early age herself, is investigating the long-ago death of a runaway, the kind of girl society allows to fall through the cracks. (Was she with her birth mother? Did she run away? Does anyone who knew her care?) Kinsey was smart enough and lucky enough to build a series of surrogate families -- beginning with her neighbor Henry and now including the two elderly cops. This support system gives her a strength the young murder victim didn't have. There are other women in this story, one is a girl whose home life was also very difficult who dreamt of better, more stable future with the boy next door, another loves too well but not too wisely, a third is an adoring sister who knows more about her brother than she says. Against this backdrop, Kinsey is dealing with her own unresolved feelings about her mother, grandmother, aunts and cousins. The comparison of the lives of these women add texture and substance to the story that is unusual with books of this genre. The only reason I subtracted a star is the mystery itself. I figured out the killer's identity long before Kinsey did -- and I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I wish she put as much work on plot as she did on character.