Friday 16 February 2018

Book ~ "P is for Peril" (2001) Sue Grafton

From Goodreads ~ It is now nine weeks since Dr Dowan Purcell vanished without trace. The sixty-nine-year-old doctor had said goodnight to his colleagues at the Pacific Meadows nursing home, had climbed into his car and driven away - never to be seen again.

His embittered first wife, Fiona, is convinced he is still alive. His second wife, Crystal - a former stripper forty years his junior - is just as sure he is dead. Enter private investigator Kinsey Malone, hired by Fiona to find out just what has happened to the man they loved.

Enter also Tommy Hevener, an attractive flame-haired twenty-something who has set his romantic sights on Kinsey. And Tommy is a man with a very interesting past.

It's 1986 and Kinsey Millhone is a 36-year-old private detective in Santa Teresa, CA.  She has been hired by Fiona, the first wife of Dr. Dowan Purcell, to find her ex-husband.  He disappeared nine weeks ago ... Fiona wants to know if he has taken off (he has done this in the past a couple times) or if he's dead.  The doctor's current wife, Crystal, is a former stripper he met on a trip to Las Vegas and is convinced he is dead.  In her investigation, Kinsey discovers fraudulent Medicare activity at the clinic where Purcell worked as the medical director ... is he responsible and taken off or killed himself because he knows it's going to be revealed?

In the meantime, Kinsey is looking for new office space and finds one for rent nearby.  She is attracted to Tommy, one of the owners of the office space ... until she discovers he has a shocking past.

I thought this story was okay.  There are lots of people in this story and many who could have "dunnit" including Dr. Purcell himself.  The story ends abruptly and the usual epilogue isn't there.  There was still one aspect of the story left outstanding.  It's written in first person perspective in Kinsey's voice.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

This is the sixteenth in the "alphabet series" featuring Kinsey Millhone.  Though it is part of a series, it works as a stand alone.  I discovered this series in the mid-1990s and have read them all.  I started rereading them last year.  With the author's recent death, Y is for Yesterday will be the end of the series.

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