R is for Ricochet -
Reba Lafferty was a daughter of privilege, the only child of an adoring father. Nord Lafferty was already in his fifties when Reba was born, and he could deny her nothing. Over the years, he quietly settled her many scrapes with the law, but he wasn't there for her when she was convicted of embezzlement and sent to the California Institution for Women. Now, at thirty-two, she is about to be paroled, having served twenty-two months of a four-year sentence. Nord Lafferty wants to be sure she stays straight, stays at home and away from the drugs, the booze, the gamblers." "It seems a straightforward assignment for Kinsey: babysit Reba until she settles in, make sure she follows all the rules of her parole. Maybe all of a week's work. Nothing untoward - the woman seems remorseful and friendly. And the money is good." But life is never that simple, and Reba is out of prison less than twenty-four hours when one of her old crowd comes circling round.
Published: 2005-03-29 (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
ISBN: 9780425203866
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 363 pages
Goodreads' rating: -
Reviews
I've read some of Grafton's other works and liked some (especially early on in the alphabet series), but this one left me asking the question: Why doesn't someone edit this woman's work? The amount of exposition and background info added to this book is almost Melvillenian (the 19th century whaling industry - fascinating, no?). Pages and pages of background on money laundering pigeon-holed into casual conversation.Warning: I wouldn't recommend listening to this on audio book while driving. You're welcome!Plus, she's drained every ounce of quirkiness from her supporting cast. How much more humor can there be in in the sex life of a 90 year old man? The answer would probably make me blanch.So much nitpicking, which is a shame because she has/had a knack for story, dialogue and characterization.
Kinsey gets a girlfriend in this book. For a women who is suspicious of the advances of her new found family she falls hard and fast for Reba. They shop, they eat, they travel together and even try to save one another's life. Kinsey also gets a boyfriend in this book. I kept wondering if the author meant for the novel's bad guy and the new boyfriend to be so similar, so rich, so smooth.This was an enjoyable read, but in both her professional adventure and her romantic one, Kinsey follows the lead of others and I wonder if that will eventually be her undoing as the series concludes.
It's been about 5 1/2 years since I read "Q is for Quarry," and the recent passing of Sue Grafton brought this series back on to my radar. This was also the first audiobook I have listened to with a female lead character and therefore a female narrator. I felt the narrator sounded like a bored Ellen Degeneres. While I found this voice worked for the character of Kinsey Milhone, it also made the character feel a lot more tedious and cynical and quite frankly, not as likable as I have found her in the past. This story was a bit different than those that came before it in that in this one, Kinsey is hired by an elderly gentleman to retrieve his daughter (Reba) from the California Institute for Women, where she is being released after serving 22 months for embezzlement, bring her home and get her settled. Since Kinsey doesn't have a lot on her plate and this sounds like an easy assignment that will only take a few hours of her time, she agrees to do it. However, once home, Reba quickly makes contact with her old boss/boyfriend and it turns out that for her, staying out of trouble isn't as easy as one would think - and what was supposed to be a quick chauffeur/baby-sitting job ends up becoming far more complicated as Kinsey both forms an odd friendship with Reba - and tries to keep her out of trouble and off the first bus back to prison. Meanwhile, Kinsey also has time to interfere in the love life of her 87 year old landlord, Henry, and start an (awkward and painful at times to listen to) romantic relationship of her own. This story was so slow and boring that I almost gave up on it! Towards the end, I found myself tuning out more than I was listening to it, yet when I tuned back in, I didn't feel as though I'd lost anything important. And for being a private investigator, Kinsey was not very sharp in this one! There were so many things that seemed so obvious or that Reba quickly honed in on that took Kinsey a lot longer to figure out - she's usually so much sharper than that! And while the narrator did an excellent job with distinguishing the voices for the elderly characters in the book, Reba and Kinsey often sounded the same so it wasn't always clear which was speaking. This being the eighteenth book in a series, however, it's understandable that not all of the books are going to knock it out of the park - and based on other reviews, I'm not the only one to have found this to be the dud of the series. It wasn't bad enough for me to abandon the series; in fact, I'm quite sad the "alphabet ends at Y," as Grafton's daughter put in when announcing her mother's death and I will definitely finish reading it.
3.5 StarsReview to follow
3.5 stars.It was nice to be back in Kinsey territory, and there was plenty that was fun here, but I felt that Kinsey made just one too many highly stupid decisions (or rather went along with Reba's plans), and never seemed to evaluate the consequences, after she gets out safely. Not one of my favourites in the series, but not bad either.On a completely trivial note: I don't remember there being quite so much about clothes in earlier books. I didn't mind Kinsey's usual "I've got barely any clothes except jeans and turtlenecks", or when she finally gets a few other clothes, thanks to Reba, but Cheney ... !?!