“E” is for Evidence by Sue Grafton,  New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1988.  Comment by Nick Bledsoe

I collect southern writers. California mystery writer Sue Grafton is not listed in Writers of the American South or A Portrait of Southern Writers. But she fits my criteria – she was born here.  According to Ahearn’s Author Price Guide, she was born in Louisville, Kentucky and earned a BA from the University of Louisville. Her parents were both children of Presbyterian missionaries to China. Ms. Grafton has said, “The mystery novel offers a world in which justice is served. Maybe not in a court of law, but people do get their just desserts.”  Grafton is best known for the alphabet series beginning with “A” is for Alibi, but her first book was Keziah Dane published by McMillan in 1967.  A fine copy with a fine dust jacket of Keziah Dane would bring about $800, while “A” is more like $1,500.  This is a case where the author’s first book in not the most valuable.  I want a copy of each for my collection. She is also a writer of movie scripts including Walking through Fire which won a Christopher Award in 1979.  If you have never visited her website, www.suegrafton.com, it is a real treat. The homepage has some neat animation. It even includes a report on her from her main character, Kinsey Milhone.

Readers of later, that is after “F” for Fugitive, books are intrigued by the references to the fire that caused her home to be rebuilt and Kinsey’s second husband, Daniel Wade, the jazz pianist.  Those questions are answered in “E.” There is a lot of suspense packed into the 179 pages and smaller size.  In fact a true first looks like a book club copy of some books because it is only six inches by eight and a half inches by an inch thick.  This size is the same as “A” through “F.”  Book club versions are the same size and have very similar covers. 

In “E,” Kinsey Milhone, private investigator, is facing Christmas alone when she is asked to investigate a fire claim for an insurance company.  Before she really begins, $5,000 appears in her bank account.  The mysterious deposit becomes part of a plot to discredit her fire investigation by inferring that she is taking a bribe.  In trying to clear herself of possible loss of license and potential criminal charges, she is caught in a bomb blast that kills someone standing nearby.  The fire was in a building owned by a large, family-owned business.  An old suicide now looks suspicious and in the midst of all of this, her ex-husband shows up to ask for help.  He too becomes a part of the tangled plot.  Kinsey later becomes a bomb victim herself, but in the end the perpetrator gets his reward.  Kinsey did not have a merry Christmas.  Find a copy and get all the details. They are readily available in paperback at most chain booksellers.  I don’t know about “E,” but “C” has exceeded 30 printings. 

Enjoy

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Certain Prey, by John Sandford, New York, Putnam, 1999, reviewed by Sharlan Douglas

I really don’t think of John Sandford’s Prey books as police procedurals, but every time I read one I am deeply satisfied by its attention to the finer points of the law -- even as Lucas Davenport is brazenly violating it. Before I read Certain Prey I read Sara Paretsky’s Hard Time. It’s a good read, but when I got to the end, after a parade of bent cops, women in chains, black market goods and murder, compounded by V.I. Warshawski’s cowboy detective act, I could only wonder: How the heck will they ever get any convictions out of this? Not a problem with Sandford.

In Certain Prey, Sandford gives us an Elmore Leonard-flavored pair of bad guys, er, gals: One is a hitter for hire, the other her client. They develop a prickly but genuine friendship and, as I find with many Leonard heavies, a secret part of me was rooting for them, or at least one of them.

Sandford wraps them up in his usual crisp dialogue, salted with droll, cop humor.

Reviewed by Sharlan Douglas

The Hours of the Virgins, by Loren Estleman. New York: Mysterious Books, 1999.  Reviewed by Shar Douglas

Anybody out there remember Firesign Theater’s "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger?" Back in the early ‘70s I used to howl at lines like, "It all came rushing back at me, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist," and "He stopped on a dime. Unfortunately the dime was in Mr. Rococo’s pocket."

In clear-headed middle age, though, I love Loren Estleman’s Amos Walker novels. Nobody’s more hard boiled or cracks wiser than Walker, an unrepentant smoker with a bottle of booze in the bottom drawer; a trenchcoated knight with an Olds Cutlass for a steed and a hidebound code of ethics.

It’s been 20 years since Walker’s partner, Dale Leopold was killed, but Walker never forgot. The suspect in that killing is back, wrapped up in an art forgery and/or theft and wrapped up with the beautiful young wife of a wheelchair-bound pornographer-cum-millionaire (Larry Flynt meets Rupert Murdoch). Walker’s search for a priceless, centuries-old book of hours parallels his renewed investigation into Leopold’s death.

And then there’s the prose: Detroit’s skyline, "…a city with more empty spaces than a goal-tender’s grin." "A complacent Merlin Gilly is harder to look at than a C-section." In an adult movie house, "The linoleum snatched nastily at the soles of my shoes on the way down the aisle."

‘Way to go, Loren!