I is for Innocent
by Sue Grafton
★★★☆
Kinsey is back for another adventure in her life as a private investigator. She’s been kicked out of her former offices, California Fidelity, and she’s started and new partnership with a local lawyer, Lonnie Kingman. She’s helping him investigate his cases in exchange for rent-free office space. The only drawback is the struggle to keep her investigative methods above board. If called to testify in court she needs to be beyond reproach, so breaking and entering is no longer and option.
Morley Shine, a fellow P.I., dies and Kinsey takes over a 6-year-old cold case he had been working on. She’s trying to help Kingman find evidence against a man accused of killing his wealthy wife, but the details don’t quite add up. Soon she finds herself in the middle of a bigger mystery than she’d originally bargained for. A hit and run, shots fired through a peep-hole in a door, poisonous mushrooms and her landlord’s hypochondriac brother all complicate matters.
As with all the Kinsey Millhone books, if you like the series, you’ll like this. If you don’t, this one is no different. I love having these books as a break or buffer between some of the bigger, meatier classic or modern lit books that I enjoy. They are a great palette cleanser. If I read Henry James and then dive straight into Edith Wharton, the two tend to blur in my mind. Having a quick mystery with the no-nonsense Kinsey is a perfect buffer.
p.s. Aren't those cover awful? Somebody needs to get on that.
