Product Description

Thirty-four years ago, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. She was never seen again.

In the small California town of Serena Station, tongues wagged. Some said she'd run off with a lover. Some said she was murdered by her husband.

But for the not-quite-seven-year-old daughter Daisy she left behind, Violet's absence has never been explained or forgotten.

Now, thirty-four years later, she wants the solace of closure.

In S is for Silence, Kinsey Millhone's nineteenth excursion into the world of suspense and misadventure, S is for surprises as Sue Grafton takes a whole new approach to telling the tale. And S is for superb: Kinsey and Grafton at their best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64593 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Kinsey Millhone has kept her appeal by being distinctive and sympathetic without craving center stage. While some mysteries that provide the PI's shoe size or most despised food create a forced and intrusive intimacy, a master like Grafton makes the relationship relaxed and reassuring. Millhone's life is modest and familiar, though her love life, now featuring police detective Cheney Phillips, tends to be oddly remote. This 19th entry (after 2004's R Is for Ricochet) adopts a new convention: Millhone's customary intelligent and occasionally self-deprecating first-person reportage is interrupted by vignettes from the days surrounding the Fourth of July, 34 years earlier, when a hot-blooded young woman named Violet Sullivan disappeared. Violet's daughter, Daisy, who was seven at the time, hires Millhone to discover her mother's true fate. Violet had toyed with every man in town at one time or another, so there's no shortage of scandalous secrets and possible suspects. Constant revelations concerning several absorbing characters allow a terrific tension to build. However, the utterly illogical and oddly abrupt ending undermines what is otherwise one of the stronger offerings in this iconic series. One million first printing; Literary Guild, BOMC and Mystery Guild main selection. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Grafton's determined march through the criminal alphabet puts readers within striking distance of the end, a destination no Grafton fan wants to reach. The latest in the lexicon should really be C Is for Cold Case, since it involves a disappearance that took place nearly 35 years in the past. (Although the alphabet keeps progressing, Grafton's heroine, Kinsey Millhone, is still in her late 30s and, given her high-fat eating habits, probably wouldn't have survived to be a sleuth in her 60s.) The daughter of a really neglectful mother (who could have starred in I Is for Issues) has been haunted by her mother's disappearance from a Fourth of July celebration when the daughter was only three years old. Part of the intrigue from this case comes from Grafton's sensitive portrayal of the psychological consequences of neglect. Boldly departing from the conventions of victim fiction, Grafton portrays the daughter as sniveling and annoying as well as desperate. Millhone doesn't have much hope for the case but starts digging (it's fascinating in itself to see how Millhone flounders and flounders until she finds a crack in the case). Grafton juxtaposes flashbacks to 1953, when the mother disappeared, with the current investigation, giving different points of view on the woman. Although she gives us a bit too much of Millhone's eating and living habits (probably in response to fan enthusiasm), this novel also presents strong character portrayals, a mosaic of motives, and a stunning climax. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Book by book, this may be the most satisfying mystery series going."
-- The Wall Street Journal (Wall Street Journal )

Customer Reviews

My first Grafton, but won't be my last!
This was my first Grafton novel and I was pleasently surprised to enjoy it as much as I did! this is a series but the book stands alone (though now I am curious to read some of the earlier books). Kinsey Millhone is a femalie private detective, from Santa Teresa, CA. She is on the case of 50 year old murder at the request of one Daisy Sullivan. Daisy's Trailer trash Mom (Vilolet) Disappeared on Independence day 1953. No one could ever figure out if Violet took off with am an or was murdered. When Kinsey starts nosing around some of the locals get bent out of shape, and someone is trying to scare her off the case. I won't give away any of the surprises, but there are plenty of tweists and turns. An intersting sidelight is how the author switches voice in the book, from frist person Kinsey, as the investigator to flashbacks of what occurred back in 1953. This could have been confusing but the author does a great job of weaving the two together, without giving too much away.

Unlike any of Grafton's previous novels
Violet Sullivan patted her hair, applied her trademark violet cologne, checked the hemline of her purple sundress, and tucked her Pomeranian pup in her straw bag. She poked her head around the bathroom door to say goodnight to her seven-year-old daughter Daisy in a bubble bath and her regular babysitter, Liza. She blew them both a kiss, climbed into her brand new Chevy Bel Air sedan, backed down the drive, filled the gas tank at a highway gas station, and vanished. It was the 4th of July, 1953 in Serena Station, California. Violet was headed for the fireworks celebration but never showed up.

Tongues wagged, police investigated, and speculation mounted in the sleepy little town. Old case files would show that Violet had emptied her safety deposit box of a rumored $50,000 insurance cash settlement and that her favorite outfits were missing from her closet. Her reputation as a loose woman around town led some to figure she had left her brutish husband to run off with a lover. Others believed her husband finally had had enough and killed her in a drunken rage during one of their well-known fights. But there was no body, no abandoned car, no wandering puppy --- not a sign of Violet anywhere. Life pretty much went on after the scandal died down. Thirty-four years later, her daughter, Daisy, blames the disappearance of her mother for her current unhappiness. She decides to find out what really happened to Violet Sullivan, come what may.

Private detective Kinsey Millhone's established reputation leads Daisy to her office. Missing persons cases are not in Kinsey's resume, but Daisy's story is so compelling that Kinsey names her price and reluctantly takes the case.

When Sue Grafton launched A IS FOR ALIBI in the spring of 1982, the book was heralded by readers and critics alike for its sassy protagonist, Kinsey Millhone, and its bravura debut of what looked like a very ambitious undertaking. If A was for alibi, could an alphabet series all the way to Z be in Grafton's future? She had worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for nearly a decade, survived a nasty divorce, and often fantasized, according to one biographer, of ways to murder her ex-husband. Banging out stories on deadline was a way of life, but it was a grind she no longer wanted to continue, so she created the irrepressible Kinsey of the ever-present little black dress and the beater Volkswagen Beetle.

Kinsey's career and life have moved forward five years during the first 18 books in the bestselling detective series. The ubiquitous Beetle has been traded for a newer model. The black dress that served as a trusty prop went up in smoke with the original car, but her wardrobe has remained as casual and ready for action as ever. The angst and introspection of Kinsey's own past in recent books is behind her.

S IS FOR SILENCE is a departure from the formula that had become the signature of the Alphabet mysteries. Grafton could, as many series writers do, rest on her laurels and pound out another enjoyable read with the same characters --- Rosie at the diner, Charlie her landlord, Cheney her boyfriend. A week in the life of Kinsey Millhone, on the hunt for a bad guy. Instead, she chose to write a novel laced with atmosphere, delivering a plot with punch and action. She takes the reader back to the sounds, the colors, and the peace and quiet of a sleepy California town in the early 1950s. The story of what happened to a flamboyant, bored young woman, her daughter, her husband, the babysitter, and the men in town who hung out at the Moon Bar and Grill is told from the point of view of each of the people who knew and loved Violet.

S IS FOR SILENCE is unlike any of Grafton's prior books, some of which readers and critics felt were becoming hackneyed. She's met the daunting challenge of the alphabet by pushing the envelope. With only seven to go, Kinsey exhibits welcome signs of life and excitement ahead. I can't wait for "T."

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

A FUN ADDITION TO GRAFTON'S ALPHABET
If the weather is cold and the wind is howling outside, why not settle down with a cup of hot chocolate and Sue Grafton's S is for Silence, another clever contribution to the Kinsey Millhone series. This pleasant little romp has Kinsey investigating the 1953 disappearance of a woman, Violet Sullivan, local legend and "town harlot" who was loved by few and despised by many. Everyone in town, it seems, has had some sort of involvement with Violet........and has their tale to tell.

The story is set in the 1980's with Kinsey hired by the womans now adult daughter to find out what happened to her mother, who left town in her new 1953 Chevy BelAir taking nothing more than her Pomeranian dog and the clothes on her back (and perhaps the $50,000 insurance settlement she continually brags about to anyone who will listen). Unlike most of the previous offerings in this series which usually detail events strictly from Kinsey's point of view, this novel features flashbacks told from the standpoint of various individuals involved with Violet during the fateful week preceding and following her disappearance. Violet is a colorful character, sometimes kind and thoughtful while at others mean spirited and manipulatve So what happened to her?? Did she simply run off or was she murdered?

Lean back, prop up your feet, sip your hot chocolate and savour this engaging little diversion. It's not Shakespeare or Tolstoy, just simple entertainment........so enjoy.