V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone Book 22)

I enjoyed this book. It had nothing gross, and even when there were police raids, shootings, and other such things that happen in detective stories, none of it was stomach-turning, but still exciting.I would think that anyone who enjoy detective stories would enjoy this one.

After waiting for V for such a long time, perhaps I expected too much. V is for Vengence is mediocre at best. Still, a mediocre Kinsey Milhone book is not that bad, so if you are a died in the wool fan, you won't miss it no matter what the reviews say. I know I couldn't pass it up.The book doesn't put Kinsey in the best light. She spots a shoplifter at a department store and rushes to notify security. The shoplifter's body is found at the bottom of "suicide bridge" a few days later, and the dead woman's fiance hires Kinsey to find out if it was suicide or murder. The plot is more complex, but I don't want to be a spoiler. What is kind of odd is Kinsey's morphing into the Avenging Angel of department store security. She goes after the dead woman's partner (including following the teenage daughter around with absolutely no purpose and no resolution...it's like part of the book Grafton stuck in and forgot about). Even when the client fires her, she can't stop following the woman and causing trouble for innocent bystanders. Suddenly she's Police Inspector Javert, obsessed with bringing Jean Valjean to justice. It seems like a big head of steam to get up over something that's not murder or kiddy porn. Yeah, shoplifting is very bad, it costs consumers a lot of money, as we learn because Kinsey keeps harping on it and pouring out statistics, but get a grip Kins. And Get a Life.The best parts of Grafton's books are those all-too-rare glimpses into Kinsey's personal life. There are none here. Henry, her handsome 90 year old landlord is away again, taking one of our favorite characters off the board. Rosie, who is a gifted if eccentric cook in some books and an awful one in others, is at her worst here. How does she keep the restaurant going when she serves only pigs feet and mutton heads to white suburban middle class clients? Sometimes Sue Grafton can be a bit formulaic, with her descriptions of the all white interiors of those houses in Horton Ravine where the rich ladies with the softly highlighted pagesboys live. You know, the ones with the pale grey wool trousers and the white silk blouse with sleeves rolled to the elbow, showing off the cartier tank watch. Oy already. But in this book, she departs from this script and I was surprised to find myself missing it!There are subplots aplenty. We have police informants, blackmailers, crooked cops, and a mafioso and his mistress. He runs the shoplifting operation and while Kinsey is hell bent for leather to nail the poor little worker bees, she restrains herself when it comes to Mr. Big. Read the book (you know you will no matter what I say) and see if it doesn't seem a little farfetched to you at the end. Anyway, we get another peek at the handsome and wealthy Police Officer Cheney Phillips with his cashmere sweaters in soft browns and beiges, but he's mostly annoyed with Kinsey and there does not seem to be any spark on his side. She is still cutting her hair with the toenail clippers or whatever, so maybe that explains it. She's a grown woman in her mid 30s. The gamin look doesn't work very well past age 15. By this point, she probably looks either homeless or demented. Plus it seems she has gotten smaller in this book. In earlier novels, she was 5'6" and weighed 118 lbs. Now She is noticably smaller...the word 'vulnerable' was bandied about. Okay she was never amazonian, but not a pipsqueak either. Is Sue Grafton hoping for Julia Roberts to do the movie? Is there going to be a movie? We also meet a lovable burgler and his Dumb Dora With a Heart of Gold ex-hooker wife, unfaithful wives and two-timing husbands, trampy secretaries, moles, family mysteries, family secrets, family murders, jealous brothers, secret passages and the kitchen sink.V is for Vengence is supposed to give us a look into the high-tech world of global shoplifting. Well, it doesn't. We learn a little, that one booster can pick up a nice load of merchandise, that it is competitive arena and rival gangs fight for territory. There are different levels of operation, from the actual lifters to people who remove tags and sort the loot...which includes everything from drug-store brand skin care items to baby formula, as well as clothing, others who transport the stuff, and warehouses where it is bundled onto pallets and shipped worldwide. And we learn some buzzwords too. It's just not that interesting.None of it makes this book work. I hope Ms. Grafton is not running out of steam this close to the finish line. I hope we get more of Kinsey's personal life and love life. Where is Robert Dietz, anyway. Has he forgotten Kinsey completely. Heck, at this stage I'd even take that poor sap Jonah Robb back for Kinsey's sake. I'm pretty sure she has not had a romance for at least 3, maybe 4 letters of the alphabet.By the way, do other readers get frustrated withe the books' setting in the pre-internet/pre-cell phone world? Poor Kinsey schlepps to the library to do research, instead of googling. She needs to use pay phones when she's out on a stakeout! I'll bet there are younger readers who can't imagine living in so primitive a world.Anyway, let's wait for the next one and hope W does not stand for Wasting our Time.

In the beginning,I was confused. It took most of the book to clear it up, but it did.Second thought can career criminals really be goodguys? It seems some can.

This novel is a change of pace for the author. It is slow starting as it fills in backstory for a number of characters, and it moves from character to character as the story develops. It starts out simple enough, with Kinsey doing her duty as an ex-police officer and reporting a shoplifter. That would seem pretty straight-forward until the woman shows up dead. Kinsey is hired by the woman's significant other to investigate, and turns up information that the man would rather not know. The woman had a history and had done hard time. Kinsey is not willing to let go of the investigation, and becomes enmeshed in the details of a large scale criminal operation. Results do not come out as expected for a number of people.While this novel reads well as a stand alone novel, some readers prefer to start with the first books in the alphabet series:  A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries, No. 1) ; B is for Burglar (Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries, No. 2)  which won the author both the Shamus Award and the Anthony Award in 1986; etc. The author also wrote a number of short stories, including "The Parker Shotgun" which won the Anthony Award for best short story in 1987. There is a limited editon collection of the short stories  Kinsey and Me  which is available used at a high price. Readers are also referred to  "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone  which provides information on the real locations in Santa Barbara used for the fictional Santa Teresa,as well as a summary of the earlier novels, a floor plan for Kinsey's apartment, etc.This novel is almost a must read for people in retail trade. If you wonder why sales personnel look at you the way they do, especially if you are putting your hand into a pocket around a jewelry counter, read on. One of my friends who owns and operates a shop has told me about five-finger-shopping. Things disappear from displays. My youngest grandniece has recently taken a job working in surveillance for an anchor department store, meaning she watches the TV screens attached to the eyes in the sky.Thieves have many potential outlets, including consignment shops, and the Internet adds another. I have always been suspicious of individuals selling items on the Internet. I think that there are some who will steal items to order, i.e., list an item, then steal it if they receive an order. I ran across a case once of someone beating the Amazon price for a book (used-like-new) before the book was released by the publisher.

Thanks Sue Grafton for keeping Kinsey alive and solving complex mysteries. I can't wait for her next murder mystery adventure.

Another bingo for Sue Grafton. Amazing how she pulls it all together! Keeps you on the edge wondering how thats going to happen!

Typical of Grafton's excellent writing!This has suspense and humor, typical of Grafton! Can't wait for more entertainment from her!

Dear oh dear. My jaw hit the floor at the customary sign-off by Kinsey in this book because the author spelt her surname wrong !! Yep, 22 books in and this happened. Easily knocked it a star down for me and if this had been letter A in the series I'd have finished with it. I'm still reeling. I find it unforgivable, actually.Once again there are loads of differing editions/publishers/covers and you're telling me NOT ONE spotted that oversight ???? Shocking.....And all of a sudden the stories are subtitled The Fethering Mysteries-since when ? And what's THAT in reference to ??Once again it's full of hyphen and spacing errors throughout as well which I've complained about since I started reading the series in digital format. Each one on the Kindle has been the same. Chan-ning/she'dbeback/Hollo-way/sherealized/Phil-lip's/Pin-ky's...It's sloppy and I'd have expected better considering I've now paid for 22 of these stories, too. There were of course apostrophe mistakes as well. Plus mention of an alcohol-detecting flashlight which I'd never heard of so Googled. But they don't seem to have been in existence in the 80s-another oversight.This has taken me a week to plough through...I got bogged down with it at the beginning when we had all this superfluous card-playing "stuff" to wade through. It really didn't warrant as much detail as it had and I could feel my interest waning. Made it hard to pick it up again.I still like Kinsey a great deal but I'm none too impressed with Sue Grafton right now.

I have read all of the Kinsey Millhone alphabet series from A onwards, I highly recommend anyone read them all from the beginning, I adore Kinsey, I like to think I'm her in a different life! Kinsey is a private detective who lives next door to Henry her landlord who is 80something, he makes an abbreviated appearance in the book and I missed him as much as Kinsey did. She generally does boring PI work but every so often gets entangled in a bigger mess, the bigger mess here involves loan sharks and organised crime and like the last book U is not only told from Kinseys viewpoint this time 2 others Dante and Nora. For me this was the biggest failing so far although an excellent read and I charged through it, I really missed Kinsey, I want to read about Kinsey after all I have invested in 20 odd books about her so far. In the end its a very well written intertwining story that is clever and works, if you had not previously read any of the alphabet series you probably wouldn't notice her abscence, but I think as a Kinsey fan you think differently. Sue Grafton is in her 70s and to be creating these works is an amazing achievement, can't wait for W!

I don't think many people would pick this up as the first book in this series, but if they do, might be disappointed by the college kid's story at the start. Having said that, people with an interest in gambling might have enjoyed it; I found this a bit uninteresting, and started skimming it, wanting to get to the principal characters. If I hadn't read the previous books, I'd have rejected it, thinking it would continue in that vein. Otherwise, this was a really enjoyable book, The other third person narrative inserts worked better, and helped give depth to the characters. Her first-person narrative is excellent, it was good to not have Kinsey wrestling with her relatives' requests and demands again, and Henry's appearance was welcome. It must be getting somewhat difficult to keep Kinsey's story back in the eighties, but it works so well.

This is the latest in the alphabet series from Sue Grafton and written to her usual high standard. Fans of the series will not be disappointed and Kinseys life as a detective continues. A bit disturbing just how many times this woman can be beaten up and shot and still survive and apparently not become any more cautious.I really like Sues books, they aren't a difficult or complex read but are written in a format which I don't find too simple either. (Unlike James Pattersons ridiculously short chapters!) The only downside I will say about reading the alphabet books is the infrequency of publication means that I have so far started at A again twice before reading the latest release. Still I guess that means they are a good investment! For those people who haven't read any Grafton you can read them out of sequence as individual books, they are self contained stories - but why would you?

I'm a huge Sue Grafton/Kinsey fan. I don't know whether it's just me but other reviewers just don't seem to appreciate the different settings that Sue continues to place her heroine in. But this one was not just a change of setting but also a change of style. Sue Grafton manages it superbly- all the things the writing schools tell you not to do- switching to first person for several people - yet she does it with consummate skill resulting in a novel which is definitely Kinsey but no longer the introverted Kinsey at the centre but more a dominant player in a wider stage. Great stuff Sue Grafton- very readable - but maybe once is enough.