N is for Noose - Hardcover

Grafton, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805036504 ISBN 13: 9780805036503

Publisher: Henry Holt, 1998

Synopsis

"SMART AND SASSY" (New York Times) P.I. Kinsey Millhone is at it again in "N" is for Noose--another thrilling adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Sue Grafton

Kinsey Millhone should have done something else--she should have turned the car in the direction of home. Instead, she was about to put herself in the gravest jeopardy of her career.

Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townsfolk were saddened but not surprised: Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, smoked too much, and exercised too little. That plus an appetite for junk food made him a poster boy for an American Heart Association campaign. Newquist's widow didn't doubt the coroner's report. But what Selma couldn't accept was not knowing what had so bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night, that had him brooding constantly? Selma Newquist wanted closure, and the only way she'd get it was if she found out what it was that had so bedeviled her husband. Kinsey should have dumped the case. It was vague and hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. Instead, she set up shop in Nota Lake, where she found that looking for a needle in a haystack can draw blood. Very likely, her own."N" Is for Noose: a novel in which Kinsey Millhone becomes the target and an entire town seems in for the kill.

"A" Is for Alibi
"B" Is for Burglar
"C" Is for Corpse
"D" Is for Deadbeat
"E" Is for Evidence
"F" Is for Fugitive
"G" Is for Gumshoe
"H" Is for Homicide
"I" Is for Innocent
"J" Is for Judgment
"K" Is for Killer
"L" is for Lawless
"M" Is for Malice
"N" Is for Noose
"O" Is for Outlaw
"P" Is for Peril
"Q" Is for Quarry
"R" Is for Ricochet
"S" Is for Silence
"T" Is for Trespass
"U" Is for Undertow
"V" Is for Vengeance
"W" Is for Wasted
"X"

About this title

About the Author

The New York Times #1 bestselling author Sue Grafton (1940-2017) entered the mystery field in 1982 with the publication of 'A' Is for Alibi, which introduced female hard-boiled private investigator, Kinsey Millhone, operating out of the fictional town of Santa Teresa, (aka Santa Barbara) California, and launched the bestselling Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries. In addition to her books, she published several Kinsey Millhone short stories, and with her husband, Steven Humphrey, wrote numerous movies for television, including “A Killer in the Family” (starring Robert Mitchum), “Love on the Run” (starring Alec Baldwin and Stephanie Zimbalist) and two Agatha Christie adaptations, “Sparkling Cyanide” and “Caribbean Mystery,” which starred Helen Hayes. Grafton is published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.

From the Back Cover

Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office - a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townsfolk were saddened but not surprised: Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, smoked too much, and exercised too little. Newquist's widow didn't doubt the coroner's report. But what Selma couldn't accept was not knowing what had so bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night, that had him brooding constantly? Selma Newquist wanted closure, and the only way she'd get it was if she found out what it was that had so bedeviled her husband. Kinsey should have dumped the case. It was vague and hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. Instead, she set up shop in Nota Lake, where she found that looking for a needle in a haystack can draw blood. Very likely, her own.

Reviews

In the weeks before a heart attack killed him, Tom Newquist, a sheriff's investigator in Nota Lake, Cal., was tormented by something he couldn't share with his wife. Now that he's dead, Selma Newquist wants Kinsey Millhone to find out what that something was. Nosing around little Nota Lake, Kinsey doesn't find anything but the obligatory threats and personal attacks; relatives and co-workers who seem dying to tell Kinsey the stories of their lives but get very closemouthed about Tom; and a lead to a pair of murders (one of them five years old) back in Kinsey's own Santa Teresa. The rumor is that Tom suspected one of his law-enforcement colleagues of complicity in the killings, But that clue, which ought to narrow things down, is useless when practically everybody in Nota Lake--from Tom's kid brother Macon to his partner Rafer LaMott to the chatty, suspicious civilian clerks at the sheriff's substation--seems to be with the county sheriff or the highway patrol. So it's no surprise that when Kinsey returns to Nota Lake still searching for the clue to Tom's distress, the town snaps shut in her face--she can't even fill her VW's gas tank--and she's left with only a single lead from a Santa Teresa sheriff's clerk hopelessly, and memorably, in love with Tom. Grafton's probing group portrait of Nota Lake starts slowly, but her patient revelations of the complicated relationships Tom Newquist left behind make this her best work since ``K'' Is for Killer (1994). -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

There are few writers able to sustain this solid mixture of detection, narrative energy, and cultural observation.

The noose of the title implies a tight knot, but the twists and turns of Grafton's latest plot are pretty loose. Not that the fans of self-reliant PI Kinsey Millhone's 13 previous alphabet appearances (from 1982's A Is for Alibi through 1996's M Is for Malice) are likely to object. This story takes Kinsey away from her Southern California coastal town of Santa Teresa to the small mountain community of Nota Lake in the Sierras. There, Selma Newquist hires Kinsey to ferret out the problem that had been seriously bothering her cop husband, Tom, before his recent death from a heart attack. Kinsey's efforts are soon stonewalled as the residents of Nota Lake unite, suggesting that the widow is being troublesome while the good-guy cop should be left to rest in peace. Kinsey wonders whether the townspeople might be right until she is seriously beaten up in her Nota Lake motel room. Focusing on finding the dead man's missing notebook, she follows his trail to a seedy hotel not far from Santa Teresa that he visited a few weeks before his death. While keeping a suspicious eye on the dead man's police partner and a few other local figures, Kinsey determines that Tom Newquist had been investigating an old murder near Nota Lake, which may have had ties to a similar, recent murder. Lots of coincidences, some over-the top characters, including a hyper-raunchy older woman, and some unprepared-for elements contribute to the rather chaotic climax. But Grafton's easy-reading, intelligent prose and her heroine's sharp humor, served up dark and wry, make up for a slew of plot weaknesses. 1,000,000 first printing; Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild selection; 18-city author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kinsey Millhone is back in her fourteenth adventure--one of the best to date in Grafton's supremely popular series. Kinsey takes a case in tiny Nota Lake, Nevada, where deputy sheriff Tom Newquist has recently died of a heart attack. His grief-stricken widow, Selma, is convinced Tom died as a result of the terrible stress he was under during his last weeks, and she's determined to find out the source of that stress. Kinsey sorts through stacks of paper, old notes, bills, and phone lists but can't find a single clue about what was troubling Tom. About to give up and head back to L.A., she finally stumbles on a lead that makes her stop in her tracks. Apparently Tom was following up on a double homicide, and as Kinsey probes further into the bizarre details, she finds that he suspected the killer may have been one of his colleagues. Grafton has such a strong following by now that virtually anything she writes shoots to the top of the best-seller lists. Fortunately, the fame is, by and large, well deserved. Kinsey Millhone is the epitome of the tough, independent, smart, feisty PI, and Grafton's fine plotting, wry humor, and keen understanding of human nature make for a story that's entertaining and engaging. Buy as many copies as the budget can stand. Emily Melton

"Sometimes I think about how odd it would be to catch a glimpse of the future, a quick view of events lying in store for us at some undisclosed date.... If we understood the consequences of any given action, we could exercise discretion, thus restructuring our fate." So a more contemplative Kinsey Millhone ("L" Is for Lawless, LJ 8/95) begins her 14th alphabetically inspired adventure. Stopping in the Northern California town of Nota Lake on her way home to Santa Theresa, Kinsey is hired by Selma Newquist to investigate why her husband, a police detective, was so moody before his fatal heart attack. What seems to be a routine case quickly becomes something bigger, involving two murders via hanging, with unforeseen consequences for Kinsey and Selma. While the usually sassy Kinsey wit is here, the novel has an almost melancholic mood; there is less violence (and plot-driven action) and more emphasis on character. One of the more thoughtful mysteries in the series.
-?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Sometimes I think about how odd it would be to catch a glimpse of the future, a quick view of events lying in store for us at some undisclosed date. Suppose we could peer through a tiny peephole in Time, picking up a flash of what was coming up in the years ahead? Some moments we saw would make no sense at all and some, I suspect, would frighten us beyond endurance. If we knew what was looming, we'd avoid certain choices, select option B instead of A at the fork in the road: the job, the marriage, the move to a new state, childbirth, the first drink, the elective medical procedure, that long-anticipated ski trip that seemed like such fun until the dark rumble of the avalanche. If we understood the consequences of any given action, we could exercise discretion, thus restructuring our fate. Time, of course, only runs in one direction and it seems to do so in an orderly progression. Here in the blank and stony present, we're shielded from the knowledge of the dangers that await us, protected from future horrors through blind innocence.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805036504
• ISBN 13: 9780805036503
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320