A through N of the Alphabet series

Letters A through N by Sue Grafton, 4433 pages through 14 books.

So this month was almost entirely devoted to working my way through the Kinsey Millhone, better known as the Alphabet series by Sue Grafton. The series as a whole follows the life of Kinsey who works as a private detective in Santa Teresa California. As she is quick to tell you in every book she has been married and divorced twice, graduated from the police academy, and is not one for rules and regulations.

I started reading this series while in looking for a cozy mystery series that would meet my criteria. That is the series had to be over ten books long, somewhat humorous and written well enough for me not to throw the book across the room. I had known about the “Alphabet” series for quite some time but I never really through about reading it until it was suggested by multiple reader advisory sites based on what I had read.

The Alphabet series certainly lived up to the recommendation. The characters are easily likeable, and there is a good mix of humor throughout. The books will not have you laughing in your chair but there are some good one liners that made me smile. If I had one critique to the series, it is the ending. In a good majority of the books the story is chugging right along to the final confrontation and ta da book over. I mean she does explain what happened afterwards in a short epilog, but there is hardly any details. For example in one of the books it technically ends with her being knocked out. In the epilog we learn that she awoke three days later in the hospital, bad guy dead, case solved. Technically that wraps up the plot but I would still like more details.

Despite that one short coming the series is still well worth the read, and I know I will continue reading them. Sadly at this blazing pace I will catch up to Grafton before she has time to finish Y and Z.