P Is for Peril: A Kinsey Milhone Mystery (Sue Grafton)

Grafton, Sue

ISBN 10: 0375416854 ISBN 13: 9780375416859

Publisher: Random House Audio, 2001

Synopsis

Dr. Dowan Purcell had been missing for nine weeks when Kinsey got a call asking her to take on the case. A specialist in geriatric medicine, Purcell was a prominent member of the Santa Theresa medical community, and the police had done a thorough job. Purcell had no known enemies and seemed content with his life. At the time of his disappearance, he was running a nursing care facility where both the staff and the patients loved him. He adored his second wife, Crystal, and doted on their two-year-old son.

It wasn’t Crystal who called Kinsey. It was Purcell’s ex-wife, Fiona. Everything about their meeting made Kinsey uneasy. Fiona’s manner was high-handed and her expectations unrealistic. Kinsey’s instincts told her to refuse the job, yet she ended up saying, “I’ll do what I can, but I make no promises.”

It was a decision she’d live to regret.

Pursuing the mysterious disappearance of Purcell, Kinsey crashes into a wall of speculation. It seems everyone has a theory. The cops think he went on a bender and is too ashamed to come home. Fiona is sure he ran off to get away from Crystal, and Crystal is just as sure he’s dead. The staff at the nursing home is convinced he’s been kidnapped, and one of his daughters, having consulted a psychic, is certain that he’s trapped in a dark place, though she doesn’t know where. Kinsey is awash in explanations and sorely lacking in facts. Then pure chance leads her in another direction, and she soon finds herself in a dangerous shadow land, where duplicity and double-dealing are the reality and, with the truth glinting elusively out of reach, she must stake her life on a thin thread of intuition.

P Is for Peril: Kinsey Millhone’s latest venture into the darker side of the human soul.

About this title

Review:

When Dowan Purcell, a respected physician who operates a nursing home, disappears, his ex-wife hires Santa Teresa PI Kinsey Millhone to look into it. Fiona Purcell is still seething over Dow's affair and subsequent marriage to Crystal, a former stripper, yet they're still friends, and she seems worried. But when his body is discovered, she's among the suspects. Both of Dow's wives, at least one of his business partners, and perhaps even Crystal's teenage daughter had motives to kill.

While in her most recent adventures (N Is for Noose, O Is for Outlaw) Kinsey has acquired new digs, an extended family, and a few more gray hairs, in this one (which takes place some time in the mid-'80s), she's 36, still living in the remodeled garage that was blown up in an earlier novel. Easier than a facelift, and while Sue Grafton is a solid enough writer to pull it off, dedicated Kinsey fans will miss the more complex and multidimensional character who aged so ruefully and interestingly in the '90s. This isn't Grafton's strongest case; it's hard to care about any of Purcell's women or his associates. More exciting is the secondary plot, which involves a handsome landlord who offers Kinsey the new office space she's been seeking and turns out to be a lot more trouble than she bargained for. Despite its somewhat plodding pace and the echo of a more evolved heroine that rings through its pages, Grafton's many fans will probably shoot P Is for Peril right to the top of the bestseller list. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover:

“P IS FOR PERIL CRACKLES WITH SUSPENSE AND POPS WITH SURPRISES.”
–Newsday

“GRAFTON COOKS UP SCENARIOS THAT GET YOUR WHEELS TURNING . . . SHE’LL SEE TO IT THAT YOU’RE UP HALF THE NIGHT READING TO THE END.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“SHARP-EYED AND SHARP-TONGUED [KINSEY MILLHONE] IS AS CAPABLE AND ACERBIC AS EVER.”
–The Wall Street Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Audio
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375416854
• ISBN 13: 9780375416859
• Binding: Audio Cassette