Product Description

This is the nineteenth novel in Sue Grafton's ever popular "alphabet" series featuring PI Kinsey Millhone. Just after Independence Day in July 1953 Violet Sullivan, a local good time girl living in Serena Station Southern California, drives off in her brand new Chevy and is never seen again. Left behind is her young daughter, Daisy, and Violet's impetuous husband, Foley, who had been persuaded to buy his errant wife the car only days before ...Now, thirty-five years later, Daisy wants closure. Reluctant to open such an old cold case Kinsey Millhone agrees to spend five days investigating, believing at first that Violet simply moved on to pastures new. But very soon it becomes clear that a lot of people shared a past with Violet, a past that some are still desperate to keep hidden. And in a town as close-knit as Serena there aren't many places to hide when things turn vicious ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #340568 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-06
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 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

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.

4 Stars...leaning toward 5 for Grafton's newest outing!
It's been too long since I was really excited about a Sue Grafton novel. Way too long since I was 2/3 of the way through and just had to finish it, no matter what other use I was supposed to be making of my time. Although I was a bigger fan of "O" and "P" than most of her readers, I didn't like "Q" at all, and didn't even take the time to review "R". That says a lot. I've felt that Grafton had her heroine, private detective Kinsey Millhone, stuck in a rut she would never break free of. I didn't think she'd let Kinsey grow, similar to what other authors HAVE done (notably Marcia Muller) for their female detectives. I'd have to say the last really good book the series produced was "I is for Innocent". That's a lot of alphabet that has been burned up without a breakthrough. Although Kinsey doesn't move far away from center here, the book comes off in a way in which the older books in series did.

This book is different. Grafton employs a couple of strategies that are oft used in mysteries today, the concept of the protagonist taking on a "cold case" (which Kinsey has done before) and the use of a flashback...and the type of flashback that has a new chapter simply taking place in the past, making the cold case characters come alive as Kinsey investigates the in "the future". Grafton's future, the timeframe where she sets Kinsey, is 1987, and the disappearance she is tracking occurred in 1953.

Violet Sullivan is a bad girl. Red haired and extremely attractive, Violet disappears in her new car from Serena Station, a small California backwater town. She's been a victim of domestic abuse, but she leaves her small daughter, Daisy, behind, and takes her new Pomeranian with her. After many dysfunctional years of trying to forget, Daisy hires Kinsey, who comes to her attention through a friend. The case has Kinsey leaving her native Santa Teresa and sometime lover Cheney Phillips behind. Typical Kinsey haunts and friends are mentioned only fleetingly in this book. It's hard to know who wants Kinsey involved less....her own conscience, which says she'll probably not find anything, or folks in the little town, who seem to feel she's stirring up trouble.

Kinsey pries up a rock or two, and actually stumbles across the fate of Violet Sullivan, after learning about most (but not all) of Violet's affairs. The reader actually gets to see the way Violet meanders through the town's men, but in uncovering the person who did her harm, there are a lot of dead ends, and I confess that I didn't know the identity of who and what. That's what kept me reading. And although, true to form, when Grafton reveals, she shuts down the novel with very little afterplay, well, this book still gave life to what was a dying series. Kudos to Grafton for reviving her heroine and giving us a great, pre-holiday read!