"O" Is for Outlaw - Hardcover

Grafton, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805059555 ISBN 13: 9780805059557

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1999

Synopsis

Private detective Kinsey Millhone finds her past coming back to haunt her when an encounter with her first husband and a mysterious undelivered letter discovered among her childhood memorabilia reveal new information about an old unsolved murder. 500,000 first printing. Lit Guild, Doubleday, & Mystery Guild Main.

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

The call comes on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. The weekend before, he'd bought a stack of cardboard boxes. In one, there was a collection of childhood memorabilia with Kinsey's name all over it. For thirty bucks, he was offering Kinsey the lot.

Though she's never been one for personal possessions, curiosity is a powerful force. She agrees to meet the guy, then hands over a twenty (she may be curious, but she's also cheap and she loves a bargain).

What she finds among the items is an old undelivered letter to her that will force her to reexamine her beliefs about the breakup of her first marriage . . . about the honor of her first husband...and about an old unsolved murder.

It will put her life in the gravest peril. "O" Is for Outlaw: Kinsey's fifteenth excursion into the dark side of human nature.

Through fourteen books, readers have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past: a morsel here, a dollop there. We know about the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one has remained a blip on the screen. Until now. "O" Is for Outlaw: a revealing excursion into Kinsey's past.

Reviews

Fans hungry for details of Kinsey Millhone's well-guarded past will give thanks for Teddy Rich, the storage-locker scavenger who's come up with a box of old documents about herself that he's willing to sell for $30 (Kinsey gets him to take $20). Most of the stuffharvested, as it turns it, from a locker rented by Kinsey's first husband, ex-cop Mickey Magruderis no more interesting than your own grade-school photos and report cards. But a letter to Kinsey implicitly confessing an affair between Mickey and the letter-writer, Honky-Tonk bartender Dixie Hightower, a letter Kinsey never received because she'd left Mickey the day before, reminds her why she left Mickeybecause he'd asked her to back up his phony alibi for the killing of Benny Quintero, a drifter he'd been in a shoving match with the night beforeand convinces her that Mickey's in trouble. Wrong. Mickey's already out of trouble, deep in a coma after getting shot himself days before Kinsey started digging into the past she shared with him. So Kinsey dusts off her p.i's license and digs deeper herself, dredging up a trail of deception that goes back to the jungles of Vietnam, all the while trying to convince the LAPD that, no, she didn't get a half-hour call from Mickey before he died, no matter what the phone company's records say. Lying, snooping, rifling drawers, following oblivious suspects, rarely taking time to sit and think, Kinsey keeps you blissfully in the dark about what's happened and what's coming up till the magician tips her hand at the denouement and shows you how simple it all wasin Grafton's best since 1992, when I was for Innocent.(Literary Guild/Mystery Guild main selection; $500,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-The alphabet series that features Kinsey Millhone, a former cop turned private investigator, continues in this fine mystery with lots of suspense. The story begins with a phone call from Teddy Rich, who offers to sell Kinsey a box of personal items that he bought at a repossession auction. The contents of the box had been stored for years by Kinsey's ex-husband, Mickey Magruder. While searching through it, she discovers an unopened letter addressed to her. This letter establishes an alibi that he needed 14 years earlier when a murder case ruined his career as a policeman and prompted the demise of their marriage. Kinsey hopes to find him but, as fate would have it, two L.A. police investigators enter the story at this point to inform her of Mickey's "accident." A fast-paced, intriguing set of circumstances and dangerous turns make this tale a page-turner. The story is well crafted and the characters are believable. Grafton's fans will love it.
Linda A. Vretos, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grafton's fans will be thrilled with this knockout 15th Kinsey Millhone mystery, which deals with Kinsey's first marriage. In a complex story that zigzags between past and present, the California PI gets involved again with her first ex-husband, former cop Michael "Mickey" Magruder, who initially reappears in her life by chance when she comes across memorabilia he kept after their separation 14 years earlier. The mementos include an undelivered letter addressed to Kinsey, providing Mickey with an alibi for the beating death of Vietnam vet Benny Quintero, the unproven charge against Mickey that prompted Kinsey to leave him. Conscience-stricken, Kinsey looks up acquaintances from her early marriage, questioning her judgment and values at the time. Then two Los Angeles police detectives inform her that Mickey has been shot and is in a coma, and Kinsey decides to investigate. As usual in Grafton's novels, the PI encounters a string of offbeat characters who lead or mislead her in a gyre of confusion; here, many of them had motive and opportunity to shoot Mickey. In time, Kinsey stumbles on a clueAat first bewilderingAthat leads back to the Vietnam War and, eventually, points the way to Benny's killer and Mickey's assailant. In addition to her distinctive humor, sharp sense of place and crisp dialogue defining character, Grafton adds depth to this outing through unexpected details of Kinsey's past. Meanwhile, Kinsey's examination of her youthful self-righteousness and na?vet? initiates a provocative contemplation of guilt, morals and loyalty that graces one of the very best entries in a long-lived and much-loved series. Agent, Molly Friedrich at Aaron Priest. $500,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection; author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kinsey Millhone, a legend in the overcrowded world of female detectives, returns in her most gripping adventure to date. Until now, Grafton has allowed readers only meager glimpses into Kinsey's past, but this time the curtain is drawn, and the story of her impetuous, long-ago marriage to vice cop Mickey Magruder is told. Only months after the ill-fated marriage took place, Kinsey's infatuation with the hard-living, hard-drinking, philandering Magruder took a nose dive when he was accused of murder and asked Kinsey to fabricate an alibi for him. Now Mickey, whose life has taken a long downhill slide into joblessness, alcoholism, and bankruptcy, is in a coma after being shot by an unknown assailant. The usually unsentimental Kinsey is consumed by guilt, wondering if her uncompromising refusal to believe in Mickey's innocence years earlier contributed to his downfall. Maybe she owes him something . . . like finding out who tried to kill him. She learns Magruder was hot on the trail of a decades-old case of murder, deceit, and betrayal--a case that could ultimately endanger Kinsey's life, too. For the most part, Grafton's 15 Millhone novels have remained fresh and endearing, although many longtime fans detected a leveling off, if not an outright decline, in the last few episodes. That trend is abruptly reversed here, with a novel of depth and substance that is, in every way, the class of the series. Emily Melton

An unopened letter discovered in an abandoned storage locker is delivered, 15 years late, to P.I. Kinsey Millhone. It provides a possible alibi for Kinsey's first husband, Mickey, a cop who was accused of beating a man to death. The accusation ended Kinsey's marriage, and now guilt pangs lead her to reexamine her judgment of Mickey. When Mickey is shot with Kinsey's gun, Kinsey is only one step ahead of the police as she tries to solve the shooting and the crime attributed to Mickey. Kinsey's search for the killers takers her back to the 1960s and the Vietnam era as she unearths secrets that may exonerate Mickey but cost her her life. In Grafton's latest of the series (after N Is for Noose), Kinsey is sassier than ever, the supporting characters are amusingly eccentric, and the mysteries, both past and present, are intriguing. Grafton's fans will love this one. Highly recommended for public libraries.
-AKaren Anderson, Superior Court Law Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805059555
• ISBN 13: 9780805059557
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318