Sue Grafton. ‘D’ is for Deadbeat (1987) A client wants Kinsey to deliver a check, but stiffs her for the fee, and then turns up dead. He had been put away for vehicular manslaughter, having killed five people while driving drunk. Kinsey suspects murder, and when the dead drunk’s daughter hires her to investigate the circumstances of her father’s death, she soon uncovers enough evidence to confirm the suspicion. The case unfolds with the usual twists and turns and secondary murders, but with less edge than the previously narrated ones. Grafton also eschews the near-death confrontation with the murderer, which was getting to be rather too formulaic for my taste. She reveals a talent for characterising even the walk-on parts, and has been allowed to leave in the mood-setting descriptions of weather and scene that her editors truncated in previous books. This combination makes for a more satisfying read than the earlier ones, despite its lack of tension. **½ (2007)
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