G is for Gumshoe (Kinsey Millhone, #7) in 100+ Books in 2025

Apr 13, 2010 Melissa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mbl-hardback, mystery-suspense-thriller, series, i-would-read-again-and-again, kindle-books, private-detective, read-2011

I love Kinsey Millhone. She is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. There is just something about her that cracks me up! From her one "all-purpose" dress, to cutting her own hair with nail clippers, to her completely sarcastic tone, I just love her. My favorite quote from this book is when she's talking about the Pacific Ocean and how it is full of "USTs (Unidentified Scary Things)"

This book is one of my favorites. It's got quite a convoluted plot: A Hit Man, a Body Guard, a Missing ...more

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May 20, 2025 Doris rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: series, mystery, romance, womens

For reason, this Sue Grafton novel piqued my interest when I was casually browsing at the library. I had gone in to pick up one book, and left with seven. (That's normal, right?)

In G is for Gumshoe, private detective Kinsey Millhone is turning 33. She's both excited and a little depressed because she has no true home, just a rented loft, has no close friends or lover, has just been informed there's a 'hit' out on her, and it's her birthday.

As a surprise gift, she is hired to check up on a missi For reason, this Sue Grafton novel piqued my interest when I was casually browsing at the library. I had gone in to pick up one book, and left with seven. (That's normal, right?)

In G is for Gumshoe, private detective Kinsey Millhone is turning 33. She's both excited and a little depressed because she has no true home, just a rented loft, has no close friends or lover, has just been informed there's a 'hit' out on her, and it's her birthday.

As a surprise gift, she is hired to check up on a missing senior citizen. Kinsey travels from Santa Teresa, California to the desert to find her new client's mother, who lives in the desert alone in a former military location, which is now settled by misfits and discontents. This chance to do something positive motivates Kinsey, allowing her to skedaddle out of town, avoiding the blank dance card of her life, and conveniently being able to ignore the suggestion that maybe she should hire a bodyguard, what with the hit on her.

While out in the desert, someone does try to kill her. Returning back home, life goes on, dragging Kinsey in as she tries to find out more about the senior citizen she'd been sent to find, as well as figure out how to avoid the crazy hired to kill her.

She hires someone recommended to her for bodyguard duty, and drags him along with her mission. Who was the old woman? Why was she in the desert? And why is Kinsey on the firing line? What great dark secret could there be after 50 years which would terrify an old woman to hide in the desert, and why would any person want to hurt or hide a woman of her age?

Kinsey goes after all these answers, although her thinking is a little more sporadic. She attends a major party along with several major players from the book, gets found by a kid, runs, and is hunted again. All this while she tries to solve the mystery of the old lady and the new mystery of her client's past.

A very good, nearly excellent book, made a little old fashioned because of the lack of cell phones, the existence of public phones, and having to manually research in microfiche (up and coming technology in 1990!). Librarians that assisted in searches, people that answered the door and talked to you, children playing without hovering parents - what a long time ago!

Not quite perfect prose, but very very good, creating a book that spirals and twists through multiple mysteries at the same time, throwing in a little casual romance along the way. ...more

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