REVIEW: “O IS FOR OUTLAW” by SUE GRAFTON
In this 15th sequential story of Sue Grafton's A-Y series, Kinsey Millhone, Private Investigator, reveals details of her former marriage to a cop named Mickey Magruder, when she had just graduated from Police Academy. Though she hasn’t seen Magruder in fourteen years, a phone call from a stranger offering to sell items from Maruder’s public storage unit liquidation leads her to an investigation that becomes instrumental in solving the crime related to Magruder’s recent injuries, as well as resolving and absolving criminal charges against him in his past.
The story: A storage locker treasure hunter named Ted Rich calls her and offers her the option to buy back her childhood memorabilia that was found in an abandoned locker he purchased. She pays for the old junk out of curiosity. It contains unclaimed items stored by Mickey Magruder, to whom she was married briefly, and divorced fourteen years ago. In the box is a letter sent to her fourteen years ago that she has never seen. The letter was written by Dixie, a former bartender at the Honky-Tonk bar, where Santa Teresa law enforcement colleagues frequently congregated. The note reveals that Dixie and Magruder were involved in some sort of relationship during the time Kinsey was married to Magruder. She visits Dixie and shows her the letter, explaining that she found it in Magruder’s box of storage items. Dixie is shocked, and suddenly understands why there was no response from Kinsey and no further contact. Kinsey realizes she must deal with and reconcile her past youthful naiveté, as she learns the reality of her ex-husband’s life.
She finds out from Los Angeles Police Department detectives that Magruder has been wounded in a street attack and is in critical condition and on life support in ICU at UCLA Medical Center. She drives to Los Angeles and visits him briefly; but the detectives consider her a suspect in his recent attack and won’t allow her to be left alone with him.
Kinsey visits Magruder’s Los Angeles apartment. She illegally enters the premises by removing the yellow caution tape installed by the LAPD, and picking the lock. She thoroughly inspects the apartment and finds Magruder’s habitual hiding places stuffed with personal belongings he considered valuable. She removes only a couple of women’s items she finds in the bedroom. The elderly sisters who manage the property overhear her commotion upstairs. She visits them and talks with them candidly about her relationship with their tenant. She drives the ninety miles back home and is just going to bed when the sisters call her and alert her that the locksmith will be on the premises in the morning to change the lock on Magruder’s apartment. Bleary-eyed, she drives back to Los Angeles with her tools and a duffle bag, and stays overnight with the sisters. She re-enters Magruder’s apartment and removes much of Maguder’s important personal property from his cleverly concealed hiding places.
After returning to Santa Teresa, she stakes out the Honky-Tonk bar, because she suspects something illegal is afoot there. She calls her friend Jonah Robb at the STPD to alert him, and he begins an investigation.
In Magruder’s collection of belongings, she finds a used round-trip Delta ticket to Louisville and makes phone calls that reveal Magruder was trying to make contact with a former classmate from high school. She realizes that this is an important clue to solving the attack on him. She takes a flight to Louisville to attempt to locate the person Mickey was searching for. Her meticulous search leads her directly into danger.
Kinsey’s appreciation of her ex-husband’s lifetime of police work and devoted service to his community surfaces throughout the story, and is especially touching in the end of the book. … Pam Wilder …