For the 25th installment of her alphabet series, Grafton intertwines crimes set ten years apart, in 1979 and 1989. In a multilayered narrative, clever and street-smart Kinsey Millhone solves both. In 1979, four teenage boys sexually assault a 14-year-old classmate—and film the attack. The tape disappears, and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. One of the boys turns state's witness, and two of his peers are convicted, but the fourth—the ringleader—escapes. Now it's 1989, and one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. When a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand, his parents call Kinsey for help. Judy Kaye continues to provide exceptional narration.
VERDICT Essential listening for series fans. Detective fiction with similar strong female detectives and fine narrators includes novels by Nevada Barr, Linda Barnes, Marcia Muller, Laura Lippman, and Sara Paretsky. ["Kinsey's fans may have to take notes to keep up with her as she untangles a web of lies and cover stories to solve the current blackmail case as well as the older murder": Xpress Reviews 7/21/17 review of the Putnam hc. The alphabet might have to end at Y, as Grafton died on December 28, 2017.—Ed.]
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