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Average Customer Rating:

A good start to the series

Customer Rating:

Sue Grafton's Alphabet series has been going for about 25 years now (I think 'T is for Trespass' has just been released) and I had been bought the A-J boxset for Christmas, so thought I'd start at the beginning with 'A is for Alibi'. The story introduces the lead character, Kinsey Millhone. 32 years old, twice divorced and a private investigator. Kinsey is approached by a woman who has been wrongfully imprisoned for 8 years after being charged as guilty for the murder of her husband, a cheating, divorce lawyer who it seems everybody wanted dead. Kinsey is hired to find the truth behind his murder and also comes across another murder of a young woman who knew the victim and died in exactly the same way. The plot is very tight, yet easy to follow.Not too many characters to confuse the reader and there's no un-neccessary plot fillers. It is just good, old fashioned crime solving that although can be dark and sinister in places, it still feels like a "comfort read" with enough humour and whitty dialogue to stop it from being very unsettling or disturbing - something that the crime fiction genre has reached it's boundries in recent years, so this is a refreshing change. As a massive fan of other female crime writers such as Patricia Cornwell, Karin Slaughter and PJ Tracy, it was nice to read a thriller that is still quite realistic and very exciting but without the gore. Kinsey's character is instantly likeable and believable . The killer stays a mystery until the last chapter, which in this case wasn't that surprising unfortunately, maybe due to the fact that there was only a handful of people that it could have been. Overall this is a fantastic start to the long-running series, but could be better (and I bet it will be!) and I really look forward to reading on through the rest of Kinsey's investigations.

Give Grafton a go!

Customer Rating:

I LOVE Kinsey Millhone. Unlike other female crime busters she isnt full of her own self importance, and she's more than just a little bit flawed which makes her far more believable and identifiable. Each book is a different story instead of the same old same old rehashed again and again. These arent the gore fest that Cornwell or Reichs gives us but a gentler and far easier read, they dont get confusing and are far more appealing to me, they arent bogged down with pages and pages of technical bla bla bla that bores me so, she does explain things in detail but I'm right there with Kinsey every step of the way. Dont give up on Grafton if this is your first book and you werent hooked, B for Burglar was a great read, I'm about halfway through the series and I try to read Cornwell and Reichs inbetween but it's Kinsey I cant wait to get back to.

Entertaining enough

Customer Rating:

This was the first of Sue Graftons series that I read (having been bought the series A to M in a boxed set for christmas I obviously started at the beginning) Found this book to be very readable, enough twists and turns to keep me wondering - though have to agree with a previous comment it took me a while to get to grips with who the characters were. The ending managed to keep me up reading into the small hours and that in itself makes it worthy of a recommendation to others. Not the best I've read, but definately not the worst!

Fairly mediocre

Customer Rating:

Having collected up a number of these books at various 2nd hand sales, I thought it was time I read the first in the series. It was disappointing, I was hoping for a more sassy character like Stephanie Plum in the Janet Evanovich books and the story was rather formulaic. Kinsey Millhone is a private investigator, hired to look into the murder of Laurence Fife eight years previously. His wife Nikki has served her time for the murder and now wants to prove her innocence. A rather formulaic investigation follows, involving a lot of driving around America and too much route detailing. Characters were frequently skimmed over so that the reader had trouble recalling who people were and the final denouement suddenly popped into Kinsey's head so that there was no way the reader could have worked it out for themselves. I have several more of these books on my shelves and other reviewers have said they improve, so I guess I'll give 'B is for Burglar' a go at some time in the future.

A is for... Average

Customer Rating:

I finally decided to start the alphabet series after having A is for Alibi sitting on my shelf since the beginning of this year. I did enjoy this book and I really liked the character of Kinsey Millhone. However I feel I was expecting too much from this and was therefore slightly dissapointed. I gave this book 3 stars as I did enjoy it, but I was not blown away. I shall eventually get around to continue reading the alphabet series, but there are alot more books on my shelf that I plan to read first.