Book Review

By Derryll White

Grafton, Sue (2011). V is for Vengeance.

The start of this novel is a little tedious with a full chapter devoted to a description of shoplifting, department store interiors and parking garages. There is no socially redeeming discourse or high drama there!

I haven’t read Sue Grafton for a very long time and decided to give this a try as we do sell her in the bookstore. I noticed that Kinsey Milhone, Grafton’s main character, hasn’t changed since ‘C is for Corpse’ 26 years ago.  She has changed offices but still lives with the retired baker, Henry, who was 80-something 25 years ago.

A suspension of disbelief is required of the reader, not something I am particularly comfortable with.  So, I am thinking money machine, not artistic growth here.

And what is the American obsession with funeral parlours? For the longest time Janet Evanovich has had Stephanie Plum’s grandmother lurking at funerals as THE social occasion of the ‘hood. Now Sue Grafton has Kinsey Milhone’s extended pseudo-family member William doing the same thing. Is there a bankrupt author’s convention rearing its head, or am I missing something fundamental in the American psyche?

I appreciate authors who develop rich characters. James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux comes to mind. Kinsey Milhone does the same thing with the same people novel after novel. She still uses a typewriter and index cards for Christ sake. The cover blurb has Patrick Anderson of The Washington Post hailing Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone “among the five or six best series any American has ever written.” I don’t think so! Mr. Anderson should read more.

So you may have gathered that ‘V is for Vengeance’ does not make my recommended list. I know that it is cheeky of me to berate someone published in 28 countries and 26 languages, with a gazillion books in print, but I am sorry.  She has many ‘clunky pages.’ Danielle Steele probably has similar numbers and I don’t like her work either.

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NOMENCLATURE – Thus the meeting with the loan shark, Lorenzo Dante, who (according to Phillip’s friend Eric) referred to himself as a “financier.”

FORGIVENESS – I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget.  For the record I’d like to say I’m a big fan of forgiveness as long as I’m given the opportunity to get even first.

PAWNSHOP – This is where once-cherished items came to roost, sentiment surrendered for cash.  I pictured a constant round-robin or relinquishment and redemption, items converted into currency and then claimed again as personal fortunes improved.

THE SMART SET – This offended Nora, who thought Meredith’s conduct was unseemly and unbecoming.  Regardless of the righteousness of Meredith’s position, there was the matter of etiquette.  In their social circle, everybody was supposed to be too well-bred to expose any unhappiness to public view.

WOMEN – She was the first woman who’d been in his life longer than a year.  He’d always been wary of women; he made a point of keeping his distance, which most women found intriguing at first, then infuriating, and finally intolerable. Women wanted a relationship that was concrete and clearly defined.

CALIFORNIA – There was talk of a storm coming in, a phenomenon known as the Pineapple Express – a system that rotates in from the South Pacific, picking up tropical moisture as it moves toward the coast. Any rain would be warm and the air would be balmy, my concept of spring in the south.

OBITUARY – In a town of eighty-five thousand, the chances of being acquainted with the newly departed aren’t that great. I scan for ages and birth years, checking to see where mine falls in relation to the deceased. If the dead are my age or younger, I read the notices with close attention to circumstances.  Those are the deaths I ponder….

MORTALITY – Personally, I don’t endorse the notion of mortality. Its fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones. Seems unfair that we’re not allowed to vote on the matter and not one of us is excused.  Who made up that rule?

COMFORT FOOD – At 5:30 I locked the office and stopped at McDonald’s on my way home. When it comes to comfort food, nothing tops a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a large order of fries. I made a point of asking for a diet soda to mitigate my nutritional sins.

WRITING – Seeing someone you dislike is almost as much fun as reading a really bad work of fiction. It’s possible to experience a perverse sense of satisfaction on every clunky page.

COSMETICS – The other woman, Earldeen Rothenberger, was tall, thin, and round-shouldered, with a long neck, slightly undercut chin, and a nose that might have benefited from the gently adjustments of a plastic surgeon.  I had to chide myself. These days when so many women have undergone correction, refinement, and reconstruction, you have to admire those who accept what they were given at birth.

URBAN COYOTES – “What about the coyotes?” she asked.

Channing’s gesture was impatient.  “They’ve invaded the property.  They’re crapping everywhere. Mr. Ishiguro says he’s seen the male leap that six-foot wall between us and the Fergusons’. Karen’s two cats disappeared this past week.”

REALIZATION – She shook her head.  She turned onto her back and covered her eyes, feeling the tears seep into her hair.  There was no holding back.  She felt herself dissolve, and she wept as she had as a child when pain and disappointment were at their sharpest.  She wept as she had as an adult when she’d been dealt a blow, so bitter there was no coming back.  She allowed him to comfort her, which she hadn’t done in months.

WOMEN – For women, strategy is problematic when it comes to body functions.  Aim and positioning are more art than science, and I’d been wondering, of late, if a Rubbermaid food container wouldn’t be superior.  Wide mouth, with an airtight lid.

SIN – “You don’t believe we are what we do?”

“Of course.  We just have to accept that about ourselves.  That we’re corrupt, that our sins are mortal. “

RELATIONSHIPS – She pondered the complexities of the human heart, cunning, opaque, unknowable, and impervious to judgment.  What one did in the world at large might be condemned, but thoughts and feelings and daydreams were protected by the simple expedient of silence.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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