Given to me by a generous Freecycler, but not quite my cup of tea... so I'm posting this one to a Kinsey Millhone fan.

This book arrived with his 6 companions last week, on the day I was packing to leave to Italy, therefore my belated JE...apologies for this, but also many thanks!
I am reading this series in the alphabetical order and so far the style and the stories are getting better and better... I wonder what this one will be like?

Out of desperation for not being able to find a book to keep my attention focussed, I've returned to Sue Grafton's alphabet series for a light read. I've started it already and I am curious to see what happens, now that she's been fired by CF!

Good as ever! A few twists and turns in the story keep me guessing...but no matter what I ended up with, I was wrong and did not find out who did it until it was there, black on white... oh well, I enjoyed the book just the same.
I am going to read two rings of a different kind now, but surely will be back to Kinsey's adventures as soon as possible!

Thanks again for sharing to Smallbluepebble :)

RELEASE NOTES:

A belated birthday RABCK... I hope you'll enjoy it!

Wow - what a pleasant surprise, YowIYY! Your belated birthday present was so thick, that it didn't fit my postbox and the clever postman had decided to leave it in a basket of my bicycle near the front door - never happened before ;)
I have read this series in the alphabetical order and I'm starting the letter "H" soon. I suppose it won't take much time to enter this "I", too! I enjoy Kinsey Millhone :)
Thanks!!

I've needed some pauses with this series, but I liked to read about Kinsey Millhone again! This part was captivating and I found the 'old couple', siblings Henry & William just humorous and funny :)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I noticed this book on the wishlist of Lutecia, so the book will travel as a RABCK to Germany next. Enjoy!

Dear lukutuoli,

thank you very much for the book. It arrived yesterday.

30.6.2009:
I like the book like the others of this serie.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The book travels by mail to noname-blue.

Received today as nice surprise in the mail. Thanks, lutecia!

I'm looking forward to reading it - how can you resist an opening like "I feel compelled to report that at the moment of my death, my entire life did not pass before my eyes in a flash...."? ;-)

It's nice to see overarching developments and details of Kinsey's personal life, although I'm reading it out of order, there's enough familiarity by now to recognize some things, while still wanting to read other developments.

This novel wasn't as good as the previous ones because at the very end I experienced a severe case of "fridge logic": (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic for the term): Spoiler:

The main problem for most of the book is that the guy suspected of the killing doesn't have an alibi. Then it turns out he has one, then Kinsey figures out that it's bogus, made up on the spur of the moment. However, the guy was earlier characterized as diligent, practical and so on, the opposite of his creative, but flighty wife, who sat down and did the detail working out, the boring calculations for her ideas. This guy is intelligent, able to improvise on the spot an alibi when he sees the truck - but he didn't carefully manufacture an alibi beforehand? That's incredibly dumb.
The other problem is that the murder is committed by the killer unscrewing - supposedly from outside - the security lens in the door, sticking the gun barrel through it and shooting the victim in the eye. I just can't imagine how a security feature can be unscrewed from outside - all lenses I have seen are flush with the door (on both sides, actually) and you would need a powered drill, not a grip, to get them out. Which would make a lot of noise.

But until the end, the book was interesting.

Re-read in order to send it on again.

In this book, Kinsey is suddenly fired by the insurance company she worked for as freelancer, so she rents an office from lawyer Lonnie King. Her opening remarks about the depressing effects of being fired have a different ring in today's recession, with so many people unemployed suddenly.

Kenneth Voight, a client of Lonnie, hires her when the previous PI, Morley Shine, drops dead of a heart attack in the middle of an investigation to re-try in civil court the murder case of his ex-wife, who he believes was killed by her estranged then-husband David. At first, Kinsey is disappointed that Morley, who she knows because she learned her trade from him originally, was sloppy. Then it turns out that there's more to the heart attack than it loks like, And the husband David turns up to tell her that he's innocent - although he had motive, he didn't do it. Although Kinsey has heard protests of innocence before, as investigator she is obliged to find the truth, no matter where it leads, not simply what her client wants, and knows it's beyond sloppy, it's bad decision to narrow the investigation down by excluding possbilities.

A minor plot meanwhile is that her landlord, old Henry, is visited by his hypochondriac brother William, who at first drives him insane with his illness, until Rosie the barowner takes over...

It's interesting that, no matter how clever and with how various methods the original murders are perpetrated, at the end of each novel, Kinsey has to fight for her life with a gun. It seems to be one of the staples of the series. And Kinsey does take precautions before heading into a firefight - she just ends up outwitted despite them.

Sent by mail to the US.

This adds the USA to my
Life Time Challenge (Release a book in every country) / (Ein Buch in jedem Land freilassen).

A great RABCK book. Thanks so much for sending it!