Review: D is for Deadbeat (Kinsey Millhone #4) by Sue Grafton

4 stars for D is for Deadbeat (Kinsey Millhone book 4) by Sue Grafton.

I decide to revisit this tried and tested Alphabet series after my miserable attempt at not one, nor two, but four books where the plots fail to hatch into something more that entice me to read beyond the initial 20%.

C is for Corpse. This is the last Kinsey Millhone book that I read way back in November 2016. At that time, I wonder what author Grafton will do when she runs out of alphabets to grace her book covers. Will the series then draw to a close? Sadly, my concerns are addressed in an article released after the author passed away in Dec 2017. With the publication of her latest book in August 2017, the alphabets series has reached “Y is for Yesterday" and will now end at Y, forever.

D is for Deadbeat is about private investigator Kinsey Millhone being caught up in the loop of a man with the desire to make restitution. The writing is good. The plot is not bad. And there is this unexpected twist towards the end.

It is good to know that, when all else fails, I can always fall back on a good, old, down-to-earth mystery story.


Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 2 edition
Publication date: 2 Oct 2012

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He called himself Alvin Limardo, and the job he had for Kinsey was cut-and-dried: locate a kid who'd done him a favor and pass on a check for $25,000. It was only later, after he'd stiffed her for her retainer, that Kinsey found out his name was Daggett. John Daggett. Ex-con. Inveterate liar. Chronic drunk. And dead. The cops called it an accident—death by drowning. Kinsey wasn't so sure.

Pulled into the detritus of a dead man's life, Kinsey soon realizes that Daggett had an awful lot of enemies. There's the daughter who grew up with a cheating drunk for a father, and the wife who's become a religious nut in response to an intolerable marriage. There's the lady who thought she was Mrs. Daggett—and has the bruises to prove it only to discover the legal Mrs. D. And there are the drug dealers out $25,000. But most of all, there are the families of the five people John Daggett killed, victims of his wild, drunken driving. The D.A. called it vehicular manslaughter and put him away for two years. The families called it murder and had very good reason to want John Daggett dead.

Deft, cunning, and clever, this latest Millhone mystery also confronts some messy truths, for, as Kinsey herself says, "Some debts of the human soul are so enormous only life itself is sufficient forfeit"—but as she'd be the first to admit, murder is not a socially acceptable solution.

*Blurb from author's website*

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