“Grafton keeps pulling out surprises- and pulling us in.” –Entertainment Weekly on “O” is for Outlaw Through fourteen books, fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone’s past: a morsel here, a dollop there. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one remained a blip on the screen … remained a blip on the screen until now.
The call comes on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. Last week he bought a stack. They had stuff in them–Kinsey stuff. For thirty bucks, he’ll sell her the lot. Kinsey’s never been one for personal possessions, but curiosity wins out and she hands over a twenty (she may be curious but she loves a bargain). What she finds amid childhood memorabilia is an old undelivered letter.
It will force her to reexamine her beliefs about the breakup of that first marriage, about the honor of that first husband, about an old unsolved murder. It will put her life in the gravest peril.”O” Is for Outlaw: Kinsey’s fifteenth adventure into the dark side of human nature.
“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”
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I would recommend the entire series!
Great characters and plot
This was the first Sue Grafton book I read. Someone left it on my airplane seat. They either forgot it or was done with it. I was so tickled to learn there was a whole alphabet book series to read! And my library had them all!!! Yay me! I started to check out three books at a time beginning with A is for Alibi. The recurring characters are witty and fun to ‘watch’ through her series.
As one reviewer said, “It makes you wish there were more than 26 letters in the alphabet.” And now she’s gone.
This was, by far, the best book in this series, to this point. For the first time, I felt like Kinsey was a character I was getting to know. The previous books have successfully made good on her claims of being a closed book (so to speak). Amazing that you can get through fourteen books of a series, narrated by a character, and feel like you’ve been held at arm’s length the entire time. The case was a good one, with all the right twists, turns, amusing characters, and red herrings. I’m really glad that I kept with this series instead of walking away from it after several dull and uninspired “letters” in a row.
Will miss Z
I love this series!
4 out of 5 stars for O is for Outlaw, the 15th book in the “Kinsey Millhone” mystery series, written in 1999 by Sue Grafton. What an amazing treat for longtime fans of this series with the “O” alphabet book. We’ve known Kinsey for a long time, but very little about her life before the books began. We met the ex-husband(s), heard a snippet here and there, but we never actually got a lot of details about this wonderful heroine. Well now we do… and more than we’d hoped. When she buys a box of belongings, she finds a letter that she should have received years ago, completely changing (possibly) her relationship with her first ex-husband. Well… how often do you get a chance to explore the past again. Kinsey’s core is certainly shocked, but she is a trooper and does what she needs to figure out exactly what happened and what she needs to do now. A rare and introspective look at her past is what she needs, and as a reader, I’m glad to have the opportunity to learn more.
I love the fact that Kinsey does it all without a cel-phone. Love the era and her tales.
A must read….complete the alphabet