Silence is Golden

Review by Leah Stratmann February 23, 2006 Issue

You’ve got to hand it to Sue Grafton. Nineteen books into her abecedarian private detective series about the adventures of Kinsey Milhone, and she finds a new way to keep the series fresh. In past books, Kinsey herself is the primary narrator, relating conversations with suspects, witnesses and so forth while trading bon mots with her landlord, munching on peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and keeping her case notes on 3 x 5 index cards.

In this book, the author allows the principals to tell most of the story themselves, going back some 34 years to do so. In Kinsey’s world, it is 1987, still before the age of ever-present computers, and a cell phone clipped on every hip, thus Kinsey continues to use the index cards.

The plot is relatively simple, yet there are a few twists and surprises. A woman whose mother disappeared one summer night with her shiny new convertible and her beloved dog to take in the fourth of July fireworks needs closure. Daisy feels certain her mother is dead, but a body has never been found and she wants to know for sure. Kinsey feels as if the job is impossible and is somewhat reluctant to take the client’s money, but she agrees to work on the case for a few days, especially since most everyone she will need to interview is more or less in one place.

The mother is Violet, a wild free-spirited woman who married young and with child and whose marriage was both tempestuous, brutal and alcohol fueled. Many in the small town think the husband did her in and has never been caught, but he, as well as his daughter, has mourned her loss lo these many years. In fact since the day Violet disappeared, Foley Sullivan put down the bottle for good.

Others in town think she ran off with a lover and a wad of money she was always talking about, but nobody really knows. Every few years, one or another newspaper or radio station revisits the town’s mystery, which keeps the events surrounding Violet’s disappearance fresh in the mind of the people of the town.

The story is told from several characters’ point of view. Kinsey asks a few leading questions of each and they take her back to the days leading up to the fourth of July in 1957 in their own individual styles. It’s an interesting and unusual technique for Grafton to introduce the clues in this way. As a character, Kinsey seems a bit subdued in this outing, but it doesn’t seem totally out of character. Who among us isn’t quieter or different at some point in our lives?

This book will probably appeal most to those who have been reading the series from the beginning. It wouldn’t necessarily be the book to introduce the character to a first time reader of the series. Those who know the character have seen her development over the last 26 years from an introspective loner to someone who is tentatively coming a little out of her shell at the age of 37. She remains somewhat suspicious of all people and really enjoys her own company. It should be noted that about two years in real time elapse to two or three months in Kinsey time—the character was in her early 30s when the series began.

All in all this is a satisfying read for fans of the series and it begs the question of just where Kinsey will be going in the seven books to come.

S is for Silence, 374 pages, G.P. Putnam’s Sons and available in local libraries, local booksellers and online.

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