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V is for Vengeance Paperback – 1 November 2011

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,363 ratings

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This is the latest unputdownable Kinsey Millhone mystery - "The Sopranos" meets "The Thomas Crown Affair". Las Vegas, 1986. A young college graduate is murdered when he is unable to pay back a loan funded by notorious criminal Lorenzo Dante. Two years later private investigator Kinsey Millhone finds herself assisting to apprehend a shoplifter - Audrey Vance - in a shopping centre. Events take a much darker turn when Audrey's body is discovered beneath the Cold Spring Bridge, a local suicide spot. Unable to believe she took her own life, Audrey's fiance Marvin Striker hires Kinsey to investigate. It soon emerges that the shoplifter had become caught up in a much larger operation. Meanwhile Lorenzo Dante has begun to grow weary of his life in organised crime and frustrated with his violent and impulsive younger brother Cappi. While the police net begins to close in on him, Dante meets the beautiful Nora, who exerts a powerful pull over the gangster. As Kinsey's enquiries reach a dramatic head, it becomes clear that she and Dante have one thing in common - they must be careful who they trust...
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Product description

About the Author

Sue Grafton was one of the most popular female writers, both in the UK and in the US. Born in Kentucky in 1940, she began her career as a TV scriptwriter before Kinsey Millhone and the 'alphabet' series took off. Two of the novels B is for Burglar and C is for Corpse won the first Anthony Awards for Best Novel. Sue lived and wrote in Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mantle Books (PJ); Export & Airside ed edition (1 November 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0230756212
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0230756212
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 581 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.5 x 3.3 x 23.5 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,363 ratings

About the author

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Sue Grafton
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New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton is published in twenty-eight countries and twenty-six languages--including Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. Books in her alphabet series, begun in 1982, are international bestsellers with readership in the millions. And like Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Grafton has earned new respect for the mystery form. Readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances, and her abundant storytelling prowess. She has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America (2009) and is a recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award (2004).

Sue Grafton has been married to Steve Humphrey for more than thirty years, and they divide their time between Montecito, California, and Louisville, Kentucky, where she was born and raised. Grafton, who has three children and four grandchildren, loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
7,363 global ratings

Top reviews from India

Reviewed in India on 6 September 2017
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Super. Like all Kinsey Millhone books by Sue Grafton -- only Y & Z left in this series !!!!!!
Reviewed in India on 4 June 2015
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Nice book. Good series .waiting for X.

Top reviews from other countries

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FJPH
5.0 out of 5 stars Livre en très bon état
Reviewed in France on 15 March 2023
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Le délai de livraison a été un peu long pour un colis venant des Pays-bas.
Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Muy bueno
Reviewed in Spain on 13 June 2021
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Recibido a tiempo y en perfecto estado
Cliente Kindle
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Great!!!!
Reviewed in Italy on 19 December 2018
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How often can I repeate this: Such a good writer! Evolving great caracters in an intrecate story that devolpes with rythm and captivates
Marie
5.0 out of 5 stars You can never go wrong with a Kinsey Millhone novel
Reviewed in Canada on 6 April 2014
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That being said, I found that V is for Vengeance was slow paced.

Too many characters, not enough Kinsey:
Once in a while, in the alphabet novels we're lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Kinsey's past or find Kinsey forging a significant bond with someone. This is not one of those novels. The many characters in this book make it hard to follow at the start and make you wonder how they're all related to each other. While Sue went in depth with these characters I thought that there wasn't enough Kinsey. However we find a very introspective Kinsey in this book and the quotes are brilliant like the one below:

"Perhaps when we're forced to forfeit what we own, we lose any sentimental associations. Perhaps pawning our valuables frees us in the same way a house fire destroys not only our worldly goods, but our attachment to what's gone."

All in all even though V is for Vengeance is slow paced, it's still a very good read. I just wish there would have been more Kinsey in it.

I can't wait to read the next book in the series. Having read all the books in the series it's hard to believe there's only 4 books left before the end.
L. Dean Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars Kinsey Millhone is back with a vengeance!
Reviewed in the United States on 14 November 2011
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Following  U is for Undertow , Kinsey Millhone is back with a vengeance! She gets a 38th birthday "punch in the face and busted nose" in May 1988. A cake would have been nice. Kinsey is a pragmatist, "a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first."

Reluctantly shopping at an upscale retailer, Kinsey spies Audrey Vance stealing expensive silk PJs. The civic-minded P.I. discovers the woman is in cahoots with another and reports them both. Vance is arrested, while the other scofflaw nearly runs Kinsey down in the parking garage with a Mercedes. Vance is later found dead, an apparent suicide, but homicide is soon suspected.

In a parallel plot, Lorenzo Dante, Jr., known simply as Dante, is a loan shark with alleged Mafia ties. Dante has quite an inferno of illicit businesses burning --- and a red-hot romance with a powerful attorney's wife. One of those enterprises is a highly organized ring of shoplifters, whose kingpin was Audrey Vance. Vance's unsuspecting fiancé hires Kinsey to investigate what he thinks are bogus shoplifting charges, and the improbable suicide. Thrown into the mix are a corrupt cop, and a gambling addict who sells his soul to Dante.

Predictably, characters face death during the investigation, and Kinsey is pulled into the vortex. Ghosts from novels past haunt Kinsey, even likeable petty criminal Pinky Ford is instrumental in the dénouement. Vixen reporter Diana Alvarez from "Undertow" is a thorn in Kinsey's side but eventually proves beneficial. Heartthrob and former flame Cheney Phillips keeps readers guessing if the fire will rekindle. Unfortunately, friend and landlord Henry is away, visiting one of his ancient siblings with a broken bone.

The structurally complex plot is simplified with the help of Kinsey's index cards that are "like the pieces of a puzzle that would fall into place once I understood what I was looking at." That, and her intuition. "The purpose of intuition is to warn us when the wolf arrives at the door dressed as Little Red Riding Hood."

Any Sue Grafton novel reads like a welcomed but long-overdue letter from the iconic private eye, bringing readers up to speed with her latest escapade. The queen of Alphabet Soup-titled mysteries (who earned the title of Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America) has made a quantum leap by taking on social issues in the last few of her 22 too-realistic-to-be-fiction works.

With perpetrators identified early on, this is more of a whydunit than a whodunit, validating Grafton's title of Grand Master bestowed by her peers. While Kinsey--an average Jo--has learned to leap hurdles in her career, Sue Grafton has become an Olympic-class pole vaulter in hers. Impeccable plot, prose as rich as Wall Street, and everyone's favorite investigator make this a surefire bestseller.

V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone Mystery)
--- Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy
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