A great palate cleanser and not at all what I'd expected.

I don't know why I assumed that Grafton's books were cozy mysteries--or corny mysteries--but this one certainly is not.

It's an '80's noir starring the very likeable Kinsey Millhone. Grafton writes her heroine in the style of a hard-boiled private eye, but she doesn't try too hard and the result is a character who is recognizable though specific, and unexpectedly believable though rooted deeply in the decades of detective fiction that precede her.

It's really fun.