| "V" Is for Vengeance | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Sue Grafton |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Alphabet Mysteries |
| Genre(s) | Mystery |
| Publisher | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| Publication date | 2011-11-21 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-15786-8 |
| Preceded by | "U" Is for Undertow |
| Followed by | "W" (title TBA) |
"V" Is for Vengeance is the twenty-second novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California.[1] The novel, set in 1988, was released in the United States in November 2011.
Contents |
For the fourth straight novel in the Kinsey Milhone series (dating back to "S" Is for Silence), the viewpoint alternates between Milhone and other characters, principally Nora Vogelsang and Lorenzo Dante. The opening chapter, however, is told from the perspective of a well-to-do young man, Peter Lanahan, who borrows money from Dante, misses the payback date, and then loses it playing poker in Vegas. Dante and his brother Cappi show up, and Dante agrees to take Peter's Porsche as satisfaction of the debt. However, after Dante sends Peter and Cappi up to look at the car, Cappi has thugs throw Peter off the top of the parking garage to his death.
In the main storyline, Milhone witnesses a woman shoplifting with a confederate inside Nordstrom's. She tells a nearby clerk, who alerts store security, and they capture and arrest the woman, named Audrey, before she can escape. While this is going on, Milhone follows her confederate and is almost run over by her in the parking garage. Right after her release from jail, Audrey apparently commits suicide. Shortly thereafter, Milhone runs into a former boyfriend in the police department, Cheney Phillips, who is out for the evening with a vice officer, Len Priddy (a friend of Milhone's first husband and a longtime enemy of hers), and his much-younger girlfriend, Abbey. Priddy mocks the theory that Audrey was part of a shoplifting ring, but Audrey's boyfriend hires Milhone to investigate that theory.
Meanwhile, Dante realizes that the police are closing in on his operation. Audrey was head of his shoplifting operation, but Cappi murdered her upon her release from jail because he believed she was about to turn them in. Dante believes that Cappi has been giving information to Priddy to set up his brother, so that he can take over. Nora, who has been drifting apart from her husband for the last three years (which we later learn began with the death of her son from her firsat marriage, Peter), learns that her lawyer husband is having an affair with his secretary. She decides to sell her possessions so that she can have money to flee, but in trying to see an expensive ring, she is referred to Dante, who is smitten with her and offers her more than fair value for the ring.
Beginning with "A" Is for Alibi in 1982 and continuing with "B" Is for Burglar in 1985 through "U" Is for Undertow in 2009, Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels has been published in alphabetical order with a new book coming out every 12 to 24 months. The name of each upcoming book has been an ongoing source of speculation among fans and in the press. In May 2009, Grafton told Media Bistro that she is "just trying to figure out how to get from "U" Is for Undertow to "Z" Is for Zero" and that "just because she knows the endgame title for Z [...] doesn't mean she knows what V, W, X, and Y will be".[2] In late-April 2010, Grafton reported being "around 100 pages into [writing] it" and that she "hasn't glommed onto a title yet".[3] The book's title was officially announced on the author's Facebook page on April 8, 2011.[4]
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