“U” is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

53. – 613.) “U” is for Undertow by Sue Grafton – Kinsey Milhone is having a quiet spring when Michael Sutton walks through the door and wants her to investigate what he believes was the burial of a young girl, Mary Claire Fitzhugh, who was kidnapped 21 years earlier in the summer of 1967.

Without any pressing commitments Kinsey takes on the investigation and seeks out information to identify the alleged location of the burial. She is far from confident of the information given by her client who has recalled the incident as a repressed memory.

Patiently she assembles facts and eventually, with her help, Sutton comes up with a specific location. The police descend upon the site in the words of a wealthy neighbourhood. When the body of a dog is found police interest ceases.

Kinsey, one of the most dogged sleuths in crime fiction, refuses to close the file. She follows slender threads of information. Who else would work diligently to identify the buried dog?

The book has three interlocking stories. Foremost is Kinsey’s investigation. Second is the history of the events of 1967. Third is the story of the contemporary lives of the killers. Grafton does an excellent job of tying together the plot.

In her personal life Kinsey continues her wary re-connection with Grand, the matriarch, and other members of the Kinsey family.

While well plotted the book never took off for me. The investigation is a steady slog to the solution. I suspect I was influenced by a collection of characters who are unlikeable. Kinsey’s personal life had little sparkle. It is long series with “U” being the 21^st book. The last really great book in the series for me was “P”. I will read “V” but it will mainly be because I have read the whole series. Paperback. (Oct. 1/11)