Play Book Tag discussion

In the middle three stars from me. I feel like this was a fun mystery- almost cozy but not quite. Very Stephanie Plum but more dramatic and less humor. I like reading series in order, and despite the fact that this is the first- I have a feeling it is not the best. Hopefully her writing and stories grow more with maturity. Plus the fact that this was published in 1982 definitely dated itself. It was kind of fun to read about looking people up in rolodexes, and people not having caller ID- but the "fluff" of it got old quickly for me.

I can tell Grafton is a good descriptor, but I felt her storytelling was a little lackluster. I didn't care for Kinsey, which made me not root for her- which made me less invested in the story. It might have to do with the audio narrator- but Kinsey didn't seem to have that much interesting life to her. No backstory, no quirks, antics, whatnot. (view spoiler)[Plus I'm pretty sure PI rule #1 is probably don't sleep with potential suspects. I feel like she's pretty not smart to do that in the first place.... (hide spoiler)]The mystery itself was interesting. There are twists and turns, reveals and whatnot. But compared to the crazy thrillers and mysteries now- it seemed tame.

Maybe B is better?

I tried this series way back when, and just could not relate to the character. I didn't think the writing was bad, but I could not care about Kinsey.

I've read through T in the series. Kinsey definitely becomes more developed as a person through time. I really like Kinsey as a character though she still occasionally does stupid things. I don't remember a lot from the early books though I was annoyed by what you mention in the spoiler when I first read A is for Alibi. I can't remember how much better B is but E is one of my favorites in the series. A warning if you don't like the 80's setting, the books stay set in the 80's as Grafton is having Kinsey age in real time starting from 1982. T was set in the late 80's with people just beginning to use computers.