"O" Is for Outlaw
by Sue Grafton

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Book Reviews of "O" Is for Outlaw

Book Review: You just never know where Kinsey is going to take you...
Summary: 5 Stars

And right now business seems slow. She contacted out of the blue by a man who bids on the contents of defaulted storage lockers - and he has some of her belongings to sell. Kinsey knows they belong to her first ex-husband, Mickey Magruder, but why are they being sold? Although she hasn't seen him for over 15 years she knows he would never default unless there was something amiss.

Following the trail he has left she finds herself drawn deeper into the past, back to 1971, Vietnam, to the Honky-Tonk, a bar they used to hang out in, and into the reasons why she left Magruder in the first place. While they were both working for the police he had asked her to lie for him, to give him an alibi for the night when a man called Benny Quintero had been beaten up and had died as a result. Magruder, had left the police force to avoid having to answer charges for this - and Kinsey - disgusted at his behaviour in asking her to lie, had left him.

It seems that this old case has some bearing on current events - for Mickey seems to have paid for it - possibly with his life. Now Kinsey is finding out what happened to her ex-husband - but for a man who did not like to give out his address, an awful lot of people seem to know where he lived, and seem to be turning up to search his apartment. And Kinsey's own life now hangs in the balance.

This mystery is definitely one of her best. There is are a lot of leads to sort through and a lot of dead-ends - and seeming dead-ends. I felt for Kinsey in this too. She had only been 21-22 when she had married Mickey back in 1971 and the marriage had lasted less than a year. She has to sort through her own feelings for why she left him, but also deal with other people and crimes by people not much older than she was at that time - and I found that interesting, for this affects her thinking at some stages in the book.

You could easily read this without having read a thing by Sue Grafton before. Each mystery is self contained, and where characters are repeated they are generally given a brief introduction so you know where they fit in with the scheme of things. As there is generally not much personal development and the book is more about the crime than herself you don't have to worry about missing out on a great deal.

I also loved Kinsey's lack of affinity with animals which has resulted in some wonderful scenes in previous books - and in this book. She is not a dog person, she is not a cat person - but she always seems to end up with some dog or cat to have to explain her behaviour to along the way.

I find Kinsey incredibly addictive - I can't wait for P to come out in mid 2001!

Summary of "O" Is for Outlaw

Die-hard fans will especially enjoy Kinsey's self-disclosure--something she's infamous for not doing--about her childhood, the fate of her parents, and the randy details of her first marriage. A very vulnerable and interesting side to Kinsey's character is also revealed when her obsessive-compulsive fact-finding bent is mixed up with matters of the heart.

A fast, fun read, O Is for Outlaw is packed with Grafton's clear, colorful imagery and signature metaphors: "Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered, but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed." --Rebekah Warren

Literature & Fiction Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
• Women Sleuths