Instead of doing a Friday reading post, I'm going to combine my "reading/listening" section with a haul post & call it "TBR Thursday," which means that I will be using the TBR tag!

Haul/Inbox:

It's a mystery week!

1. F is For Fugitive by Sue Grafton: I'm looking forward to continuing with the Kinsey Milhone series! 2. Poison in the Pen by Patricia Wentworth: this one will satisfy Chapter 6 - Serpents in Eden - of Detection Club bingo. 3. Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley: Chapter 2 - The Birth of the Golden Age - of Detection Club Bingo. 4. Death Comes to Cambers by E.R. Punshon: Chapter 7 - Murder at the Manor - of Detection Club Bingo. 5. Death on the Cherwell: Chapter 11 - Education, Education, Education - of Detection Club Bingo.

Read/Outbox:

I had a solid reading week, finishing 5 books! I finished the Adventure Quilt and gifted it at the party, so I've taken a bit of a break from sewing/stitching.

Bluebird, Bluebird was my favorite of the five, and was one of my favorite reads of the year. The others were all solid reads, and E is for Evidence is my favorite Kinsey Millhone so far.

Reading/listening:

I'm still listening to Crooked House, Crooked House, although, as I mentioned above, my audiobook consumption has pretty much ground to a halt. I've also made some progress in A World Undone, and will be continuing to work on that one.

I read this book in about two hours. I don't think I can quite call it "amazing," as I reserve that rating for books that are a bit less ordinary, and this is, at the end of the day, a pretty ordinary mystery.

But it was a pacey, peppy read with a convoluted plot that sucked me right in and kept me going until the end. The solution relied on a technological world that no longer exists, but it was convincing for its time and entertaining as all get out. My favorite of this series so far!

I'll pick up Fugitive & Gumshoe sometime soon, as I'm thoroughly enjoying the series.

There is something immensely likeable about Kensey Millhone and Grafton's series so far. Swiftly-moving and well-plotted, the books are a quick, fun read. 

We finally get a resolution that doesn't involve Kinsey in mortal peril, which was a nice change. My update mentioned that this victim had a lot of enemies and that I therefore had no idea who had done it, and the ending was a surprise to me, although I'm not sure if that was because Grafton successfully palmed the ace, or if it was because I truly didn't find it all that convincing.

I think it was the latter, really. I'm not convinced that the "villain" in this case would actually have done what happened in the book. So, while it was well-done, it really wasn't all that believable.

I really enjoyed spending the book with Kinsey, though. She is a combination of cynical and warm-hearted, and while I understand why she was conflicted at the end of the book, her willingness to seek the truth on behalf of someone as reprehensible as Dagget, the victim, speaks well of her moral compass. I'm not particularly bothered by cheating in a non-romance context, so the development in her relationship with Jonas, a married man, didn't cause me any heartburn. 

All in all, this was a satisfying entry, mostly for Kinsey, and less so for the solution to the mystery. 

Reading/Listening:

I'm still working hard on the Adventure Quilt - it has to be finished by the going away party next Saturday (2/17) because the recipient is leaving Oregon for parts unknown on 2/18. I'll post pics of the finished quilt.

Because of this, most of my reading is occurring through listening right now! I downloaded A Discovery of Witches as an audiobook because it sounded like an appealing reread. I'm about 5 hours in, and have about 18 hours left. I am still dithering on whether I will continue to listen to it, or move onto Crooked House by Agatha Christie, which I could probably finish this weekend.

I've barely dipped into A World Undone and I haven't even cracked This Rough Magic. I'm at about 20% in The Venetian Affair.

Haul:

I just bought D is for Deadbeat and E is for Evidence to continue my Kinsey Millhone read over the next ten days or so. I also picked up The Last Summer by Juliet Nicholson, which is a non-fiction book about the summer of 1911, prior to the beginning of WWI in 1914. I am planning to blow through that one (it's a mere 325 pages) before really digging into a A World Undone. I'm loosely planning on following it with Nicholson's book about the time after the armistice, called The Great Silence. I also bought Somebody at the Door by Raymond Postgate, mostly because I wanted to buy a BLCC and I liked the cover. 

Total for the week: $34.90

Advancing the alphabet read, I went straight from A to B this week! In terms of the plot, I thought that this one was a bit more believable than A is for Alibi, but Grafton left some investigative holes that I'm not going to go into because they would spoil the mystery. Suffice it to say that I figured out pretty early on the central twist related to the murder in this case, but Grafton threw up a few blinds - one of which was clever and perfectly fair, the second of which felt a bit like cheating to me.

Grafton makes good use of the perception by everyone who doesn't live in California that everyone who does live in California is basically crazy. Many of her characters behave in ways that are positively mind-boggling. 

I am really enjoying Kinsey, though. She is very personable, and she uses that personality to her advantage. One of the aspects of her that I am most enjoying is her easy bond with older characters, because some of the best characters in this book were quite elderly, and also quite hilarious. The missing person is a retired woman, so Kinsey is interacting with a lot of her peers, many of whom are funny in exactly the way that older women who just don't give a fuck anymore are funny. It's charming and convincing.

I am also growing quite attached to Henry Pitts. I know that he is an ongoing presence in the books, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of him. Like most mysteries, Grafton's books are more plot driven than character driven, but that doesn't mean that she hasn't put together an appealing set of characters. I also like the way that she has made them quirky, but not caricatures, which is one of my complaints about the Stephanie Plum series. 

These books are about one million times more enjoyable than the John Sanford "Prey" books, which was the last failed OB/MR buddy read! C is for Corpse is up next!