X: X by Sue Grafton

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is for bloggers who wish to participate by publishing a blog post every day in April except for Sundays. Each blog post will focus on a letter of the alphabet. For example April 1 will be A, April 2 will be B and on it goes. By the end of April, a blog post for every letter of the alphabet will have been posted. My theme for 2023 is Book Reviews.

You can read my reviews without worrying about spoilers. My reviews are quite brief and I give away nothing more than you would read on the back cover or on Goodreads.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read a book recently starting with X, so I have decided to repost a previous book review for this challenge, that was posted, a few years ago.

X
by
Sue Grafton

SUMMARY

A Kinsey Milhone mystery

This is the 24th novel in Sue Grafton’s series of novels that are named after each letter of the alphabet. Investigator Kinsey Milhone, known by regular readers of this author, is based in a fictional city in Los Angeles and ready to solve the latest mystery.

A glamorous redhead hires Milhone to find her long lost adopted son. This should have been a quick easy job for an investigator but the mystery quickly builds when Milhone finds that she was paid with notes that were marked. It becomes clear very quickly that this client has something to hide.

My Thoughts

I’m not a regular reader of crime, but I did enjoy this suspenseful mystery, with it’s very well rounded characters. As this is the 24th book in this ‘alphabet’ series, I can help but wonder if Grafton’s books are written to an obvious winning formula. I will definitely be reading another of her books, and expect to be able to form an opinion after that reading.

Recommendation
Kinsey Milhorne is up there with the giants of the private-eye genre, as magnetic as Marlowe, as insouciant as Spenser…….Exhilarating” – Times Library Supplement

About the Author

Sue Grafton was a Number One International Bestselling and very prolific author of mystery and detective novels. Her books have been published in many languages and have appeared on The New York Times Bestseller lists many times and for many weeks each time. She passed away in 2017 before Z for Zero was published and so the alphabet series ends at Y.

All books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library, unless otherwise stated.

Star Rating

Please note that my star rating system isn’t at all based on literary merit, but is based on my enjoyment for the book.
For me a book that gets five stars, is a book that I really enjoyed, and found difficult to put down.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Unputdownable. Would definitely read again
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Fantastic read. Not to be missed.
⭐️⭐️⭐️Enjoyable read. Would recommend.
⭐️⭐️Wouldn’t read again
⭐️Don’t recommend this book again

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You can find my other blogs here:
Next Phase In Fitness & Life and Tracking Down The Family

12 thoughts on “X: X by Sue Grafton”

Grafton’s books are definitely written to a formula. I have read and enjoyed several over the years and have now collected copies of those I haven’t read. Whenever I feel like a comfortable read with familiar characters and settings I turn to the next in the series.

The other series in the same vein when I need a comfortable read is the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.

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I’ve read all the Sue Grafton books as they were published. Yes, they’re a bit formulaic, but hard to believe now, she was one of the early female crime writers in the modern day. I like that being set in a fixed time period reminds you how different things were in the 80s. Unfortunately she died before getting to Z.

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X is hard. This is a good solution. I read the books in order as they were published, but stopped at some letter, but I can’t recall which, so it’s been hard to pick them up again.

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X is always a difficult find in book titles. I’ve read a number of Grafton’s books, including this one, which I enjoyed. I hadn’t realized she died though, and didn’t quite make her way through the alphabet.

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