So in general I’m not that big a fan of mystery books. They just aren’t my cup of tea. Having worked in a library though I know there are many many fans of mysteries. I also had to shelve them quite often. Two series caught my eye and I thought I should give them a try. The first was the Bubbles series. Certainly not the best-written books ever and way too cute and unrealistic for me but they did make me laugh a lot. I also loved that the main character was Lithuanian, like me! I’m also not usually all for the fairy tale unbelievable endings, but in this case I made an exception. (Spoiler alert) the series ends with Bubbles finding out she is a Lithuanian princess. For a while I was pretty disappointed but the more I thought about it, it really fit the series.
The second series that interested me was the Kinsey Millhone mysteries. If for nothing else I have to give author Sue Grafton credit for coming up with a series for her own job security. The series works it’s way through the alphabet. "A" is for Alibi, "B" is for Burglar, "C" is for Corpse… and so on.
I of course had to start with the first one. Published in 1982 A is for Alibi is older than I am. In fact I was worried our library wouldn’t have a copy, but thankfully we have several. The copy I got is a very old paperback barely keeping itself together. I love old books like this. I have to say I wasn’t too impressed with the book to begin with and it was hard to keep reading.
I did notice right away though that you could easily tell the book was written some time ago. Kinsey talks about leaving messages all over the city for people she is looking for. When she leaves to travel to LA she leaves the motel number with her secretary in case anyone is looking for her. I constantly had to remind myself that the book was written in the 80s, pre e mail and cell phones. There is also a point in the beginning where she is filling up her gas tank at a self service gas station and marveling at how she can do this. I was thrown off but then realized that perhaps that was the newest thing then. Also when she does get to LA her hotel room is a mere “$11.95 plus room tax in the off-season and includes a ‘Continental’ breakfast…” $11.95! These little finds kept me interested for most of the book.
Overall I guess my issue with mysteries is that nothing really happens until the last few pages. The whole book is maybe this happened maybe that happened and then boom in the last five pages you have the whole story. My other issue is that so far I’ve read two series with strong female leads (yay!), but somehow they always have a man involved to save the day or to end up being the bad guy. Either way though, this strong female character always falls into bed, like magic, with this man. It just bothers me.
"A" is for Alibi was worth reading and I’m glad I finally managed to start a second mystery series. No thoughts yet on whether "B" is for Burglar will make it on the “to-read” list.
Current Read: The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
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