Grafton, Sue: "A" is for Alibi

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Sue Grafton's 1982 novel "A" is for Alibi introduces her series featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhouse. In her debut, Kinsey is hired by Nikki Fife, who was recently released from jail after serving eight years for poisoning her husband with oleander. Lawrence Fife was by most accounts a bastard: a merciless lawyer, an unfaithful husband. But Nikki didn't kill him, or so she says. And looking into the case, Kinsey discovers that Lawrence wasn't't the only person to die of oleander poisoning eight years earlier.

"A" is for Alibi was, fittingly enough, my first foray into Grafton's series, and I can certainly see myself reading further in the alphabet. Kinsey is an appealing character, in part because we don't know that much about her yet: Grafton doesn't hit us over the head with too much back story. None of Grafton's secondary characters stands out yet as terribly interesting, though Kinsey's cruciverbalist landlord Henry Pitts, an octogenarian, shows promise. My only complaint about the writing--that Grafton's descriptive passages sometimes are over-long--is a small one.