A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids."

So begins "A" is for Alibi (1982), the first novel in the acclaimed and long-running private-detective "alphabet series" of novels by Sue Grafton. I first read the book in the mid-1980s and now I am coming back to see whether my reception has significantly changed in the intervening 35 years. Not much. I still think it is a very good book. Several beginning passages remind me of Ross Macdonald's novels, which to me is quite a high praise. Unfortunately, I find much later books in the "alphabet series" virtually unreadable. For me the breakdown in the series quality begins somewhere around "P" or "Q". Trying to read "T" was quite a painful experience: pages and pages and pages of nothing, just empty words. But let's get back to the good times.

We meet Kinsey as Nikki Fife comes to her office. Nikki, a person of substantial means, has just been released from prison after serving an eight years sentence: she was convicted for murdering her husband, poisoning him with oleander extract. Nikki still claims her innocence and wants to hire Kinsey to find the actual murderer. Kinsey knows the case; she had even attended the trial because she used to work for the victim. Lt. Dolan, a police detective and Kinsey's acquaintance, lets her read the old files from which she learns that there was another deadly poisoning with oleander extract at about the same time. The investigation gets quite complex very fast.

The plot mainly takes place in Santa Teresa, which is a fictionalized version of Santa Barbara in California (a homage to Ross Macdonald who used the same fictional setting for many of his novels). The case takes Kinsey to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and other places: Ms. Grafton's prose well captures the character of various locations. Maybe it is just nostalgia but when reading "A" I felt I moved back in time. I remember California from almost exactly the same time (although I do not quite remember motel rooms with continental breakfast for $11.95, mentioned in the novel; more like $19.95). And the telephone answering service! A concept that would be so alien to young people these days like knights on horses are for me.

We meet two recurring characters in the "alphabet series": the elderly Henry Pitts, Kinsey's landlord, and Rosie, the owner of a restaurant with a Hungarian twist to its cuisine. I have two strong personal connections with the novel: the first - as I mentioned - is the time frame: good old times of 1982/1983 when I became a resident of California and traveled on the same highways and freeways that Kinsey did at about the same time. My second connection is with the very little town of Durmid on the east coast of Salton Sea. It is only few miles away from the place in the Chocolate Mountains desert where a group of Polish immigrants used to camp over New Year's Eves in the 1990s and 2000s.

The first part of the novel impresses with clean and economical prose. Also, Ms. Grafton offers a well-crafted study of the dynamics of sexual attraction. The entire Kinsey and Charlie thread is enthralling, readable, and well-written. "A" is a highly recommended read!

Three-and-three-quarter stars.

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