S is for Silence by Sue Grafton

 In this installment in the series, Kinsey again is asked to go back to the past to figure out an unsolved mystery. What was different was that the present was interspersed with chapters from the past. So we learned about the characters from different points of view in different points in time. It was a nice effect.

Like several of these books, though, there were quite a few characters to keep track of. The missing woman, Violet, was the center of the story, and it was her daughter, Daisy, who hired Kinsey to find her. Turns out there were many people deeply involved in her life and story, and keeping track of them proved challenging for me. Not bad, but I did have to keep my wits about me!

There was very little of Henry or Cheney in this story because she was on site trying to solve this missing person mystery on site in a lot of little towns not too far from Santa Theresa, but far enough that she had some interesting overnight accommodations. As usual, the characters were interesting, and again, Kinsey became friendly with several of the players. She is definitely warming up in her relationships! 

This has been a nice escape as we are stuck at home more than usual as our demolition and remodel of our downstairs is going on. It's frustrating to have it go on so long, but this series has been fun. I might have overdone it yesterday, but it was nice to hunker down in a couple of blankets and read to the end. I do have to pace myself, though, because it can be depressing if the story is seedy or violent. This one was slightly seedy, but not too violent... The parts that I enjoyed were the looks into 1953 when Violet disappeared, and I could relate to the babysitter's emerging love life. It was neat to see the potential of that relationship being rekindled later in life. That was a nice plot twist. Grafton had a lot of cultural references from the fifties too, like movies and TV shows that were before my time. Still, it added some color...