2007: #58 – O is for Outlaw (Sue Grafton)

Book #58 was O Is for Outlaw, the 15th book in Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series. The back of the book reads:

Once Mickey Magruder was a cop with a wild streak. And Kinsey Millhone was a younger cop who adored and married him. Then Mickey was implicated in a fatal beating, and Kinsey walked out. Now, fourteen years later, she comes face-to-face with those tragic years and Mickey’s harrowing downward spiral after he lost the job he loved–and the marriage he loved a little less.

Mickey lies dying in an L.A. hospital. Trying to find out how Mickey got there, Kinsey uncovers evidence that he was innocent of the beating charge. But as she searches through the lives that swirled around Mickey’s–lives gone wrong and lives gone well–Kinsey must also search the blind spots of her own life, including one that hides a killer.

I think this has been my favorite in this series so far. This is also one of the few series I’ve read entirely in order. I think I liked this as much as I did because it was personal for Kinsey. You get a glimpse into her past, which is usually very shadowed and un-mentioned. I also did not have it remotely figured out, which is a mark of a good mystery to me.

Page count: 354 | Word count: 102,820

2006 – Fatal (Michael Palmer)
2005 – Ten Big Ones (Janet Evanovich)