"F" is for fine print

continuing the journey through Sue Grafton's Alphabet of Detective Stories

I am up to “F” is for Fugitive, and still enjoying the ride. Private detective Kinsey Millhone’s cases have taken her to Florida and Texas.

She’s been stalked, and had attempts on her life. She has shot and killed someone who was intent on killing her, and she’s lost sleep over it.

Kinsey’s been reunited with an old high school friend, as well as with an ex-husband, who turned out to be just as despicable as she remembered.

She dismantled her landlord’s romance with a con artist, and taken stumbling, hesitant steps into a relationship with a mostly married man.

She’s also had her cozy apartment blown to scraps and ash by a homicidal bomber, and by volume “F” in the series, is living temporarily with her 80 something landlord Henry, while he has it re-built.

I am certain I am not the only reader who thinks Henry is the best supporting character in the series. He’s a retired commercial baker (although a couple times in the audio books the narrator has read it “banker”) who has a part-time gig creating crossword puzzles.

Henry also bakes bread, rolls and pastries which he barters in his neighbourhood, and thereby stretches his pension. (Which assures me the audio reader has just got it wrong about his being a banker!)

It’s taken me this many books into the re-read to notice that in each story so far, a principal in Kinsey’s investigation will have a surname that begins with “title letter”. This time round, Bailey Fowler of Floral Beach, California claims he was wrongfully convicted of killing his former girlfriend. Lots of “F’s” in there.