S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) by Sue Grafton
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.32 You Save: $23.63 (88%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.16 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries)
Book Review: Different Perspectives...
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book. In S is for Silence, Kinsey is approached by a young woman wanting to find out what happened to her mother...over thirty years ago. While Grafton's previous books have been from Kinsey's point of view, this one shifts, and not only lets us see things through Kinsey's eyes, but flashes back and gives us other character's perspectives.
In this time of instant information and technological wizardry, it is interesting to see how a private investigator in the 1980's had to find out information from an event that happened 30 years before that. No Google searches for Kinsey!
I am glad that Grafton has chosen to keep Kinsey in real time, which leaves her in the eighties. Kinsey is detail oriented and an old fashioned sleuth. This book grabbed me from the start and didn't let go!
Book Review: THE BEST
Summary: 5 Stars
I LOVED THIS BOOK. THEN AGAIN I LOVE ALL OF SUE GRAFTON BOOKS. ESPECIALLY HER KINSEY MILLHONE MYSTERIES. I CANT WAIT TILL SHE WRITES A NEW ONE. I GOT HOOKED FROM THE VERY BEGINING. AFTER I READ THEM I PASS THEM ON AND I ALWAYS GET A HEY THAT BOOK WAS AWSOME!!!!!!!!!Book Review: Back and Forth
Summary: 4 Stars
Sue Grafton gives us an absorbing tale in the latest of the Kinsey Milhone alphabet series, "S is for Silence." This time Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone is hired by forty one year old Daisy Sullivan to discover what happened to the mother who disappeared when she was only seven years old. It has been 34 years and Daisy is troubled - haunted - by the abrupt desertion. No clues were ever found. It is a mystery. But Kinsey soon begins meeting people in the small California community and digging up information. Grafton interweaves interesting encounters and information about today's cast of characters with what they were yesterday. This compensates for the lack of vitality we would usually experience with a cold case. In big chunks - whole chapters -we receive the story as seen by one character or another back on the 4th of July, 1953. Then we return to the story's present again. Thus the border between today and yesterday is a broken, wavy line.
This back and forth movement of time and plot makes the story seem overly detailed and complicated at times. It also fractures some of its readability. Interrupted by a busy weekend of house guests, I had to thumb back to the very beginning of the book in order to get names and characters straight when I picked it up to read again.
Alongside this highly developed story-telling style the old story-scape, wherein Kinsey Millhone fills up time filing paperwork, tidying up her apartment or her office and visiting her landlord, is gone. In its place is a canvas that is considerably tighter. Some readers may long for the older, cozy setting while others will enjoy a tighter pace. And this might ask the question, why do we read, anyway? I suspect that even at its most elemental level we read to experience life -happy or sad - in new ways.
In the final chapters there is a good deal of suspense. Concern for Kinsey's welfare builds: will she escape the murderer? ("Hurry, hurry! No, no - don't dare go to that place alone at all," I muttered.) Finally she escapes. She avoids harm in an ending that once again crosses the time border to 1953: it is a duplication. There is no other wrap-up. I found this a delightful touch of sophistication and effective, even though abrupt. In short, Grafton is, in general, becoming a more sophisticated author. She is interested in erecting a fictional pattern over the surface of her genre plot. A pattern was displayed in "R is for Ricochet" and we see that something new - a pattern - again in this next-in-series book.
I admire what Grafton has done. She has moved past the tried and true plot scheme in which girl finds mystery, girl plunges into danger, and girl solves mystery is the formula. Her portrayal of the social/moral minimalism of the 1950s is particularly good. As entertainment reading I admit "S is for Silence," may fall a little short for some readers, but I will still give it a resounding YES vote.
Book Review: One of Grafton's best except for the ending.
Summary: 4 Stars
Kinsey Millhone had the mystery of `Violet Sullivan dumped on her lap through her detective friend. Tannie Ottweiler was a close friend of Daisy Sullivan, who has never gotten on with her life all this time after the disappearance of her mother. Daisy was just a small child when this happened and never understood the mystery of why her mother up and left. She wants Kinsey to try and dig it up after 30 plus years and see if she can solve the case once and for all. So reluctantly, Kinsey gives in and picks up any threads she can to start the search.
Of course Violet was a "loose woman," and had very hot pants. So this leads to a number of suspects. What Kinsey discovers as she uncovers more of this saga is that Violet was abused by her husband Foley, so of course he was the number on suspect on the list. Very shortly before she disappeared on July 3rd of 1953, Foley bought her a brand new car, a Bel Aire that Violet absolutely loved. Since they were poor though, Kinsey wondered where the money came from and dug to find out, not coming up with anything-until later that is.
After Kinsey questioned Chet Cramer, one of the men Violet had an affair with, he brought up a place called "New Cut Road," as having seen Violet there in her new car the very last time. Thinking this over carefully, and recording the fact on her index cards as always, Kinsey dug a little deeper. When she drove down that path one day, which was quite isolated by all means, she saw something peculiar-an indentation in the sand that was several feet long. She couldn't let that go, so called the authorities to investigate there in that place. The police came out, and found a team to dig up a large hole, where indeed they found what they were looking for after all these years-the car had been buried down deeply in the sand-along with Violet long dead.
As Kinsey gets closer and closer to finding out the real truth, she puts herself in danger like always. The first incident being her tires getting slashed. And when she continues to dig and find out who did this-Kinsey may just get dug in a hole this time if she's not careful. Someone wants to shut her up, and will do so at all costs.
Book Review: GRAFTON SCORES ANOTHER WINNER WITH "S IS FOR SILENCE"
Summary: 4 Stars
In S is for Silence, Kinsey Milhone is hot on the trail again, but this time it's a cold case. After nineteen novels, if you've read one or more you probably feel that you know Kinsey, so most things about her are familiar. If not, plan on going back in the series and reading more.
The story telling is a departure from the usual, because we have lots of flash backs to the missing woman named Violet Sullivan who disappeared on Independence Day in 1953. Violet's daughter Daisy was only seven when her mother disappeared. Now she wants to know if she's dead or alive. Did she abandon Daisy or did something happen to her. And what happened to a brand new car and $50,000 Violet claimed to have received from an accident settlementand squirreled away ?
Kinsey has no trouble learning that Violet was a free spirit who didn't have the greatest reputation around town, but was a real dreamgirl to many guys who shouldn't have been dreaming. She drove off in a new car she managed to wrangle between threatening to leave her abusive, no-good husband and charming the car dealer to make a great deal and turn his head the other way when it came to hubby's bad credit. Unfortunately for the car dealer, he imagined Violet as more than a customer.
Sue Grafton, in her great style, leads the reader on a twisted path until the case is solved. If you want to find out what happens, I suggest you settle into a cozy chair, get a cup of tea or your favorite beverage, and jump into the story feet first. She'll keep your mind hopping while you try to figure out whodunit and what actually happened!
MORGAN ST. JAMES
Silver Sisters Mysteries
www.silversistersmysteries.com
A CORPSE IN THE SOUP
Paperback, CD, cassette, Kindle and e-book,
Named Best Mystery Audio Book 2007 - USA Book News
COMING SOON: Seven Deadly Samovars