Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIGGER WARNING: Repeated descriptions of sexual assault, with accompanying “she had it coming” mentality
Grafton crafted a dark story here, then threw away the opportunity to make it count.
My neck hairs first stood up when I read, “I couldn’t think why she’d try extorting money for a sex tape in which she starred front and center.” Um, what? You mean, in which she was being gang-banged and sodomized while passed out. Which is acknowledged a few pages earlier, opining that those making the tape would be facing rape and sexual assault charges. So, is the throw-away attitude toward this girl throughout the book casual victim-blaming on the part of the writer, or is it intentionally written to display the “Well, she shouldn’t have been drunk and naked and wasted with a bunch of guys, and I don’t care if she was only fourteen, she’s a dirty dirty sloot” attitude that everybody, including Kinsey, seemed to share? When a young man is released after serving a sentence for murder, and you feel bad for him because now he’s being blackmailed over a sexual assault he took part in and you don’t want to see him “go through” any more…say what? But of course. Don’t forget that he is rich and white and from a “good family.” Kinsey is so principled that she returns the entire retainer after she’s fired, without deducting for services already performed, but she’s not principled enough to turn down this dog turd of a case in the first place? Or take the tape straight to the D.A.?
Out-of-character characters. “I picked up the scent of the cigar he’d smoked, but the effect wasn’t unpleasant,” writes Kinsey, except that the Kinsey I’ve been reading about for 30 years hates smoking. Henry has always loved and babied his yard, but he’s suddenly torn it up and is letting a homeless couple pee in it? Kinsey’s being stalked by a serial killer, so she carefully cleans her beloved H&K, locks it in the trunk at the foot of her bed, and drifts peacefully off to sleep?
Anachronisms. In 1979, teenage kids use the word “homophobe” and have computer video editing equipment in their bedrooms. Most glaring was not being allowed past airport security without being a ticketed passenger–except this was in 1989, twelve years before 9/11, back when you could go to the airport and get a drink and sit and watch the planes take off and land, which I used to do. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about these novels is being stuck in the 80’s, Kinsey hauling her portable typewriter around and always being miles away from a pay phone when she needs one. In this installment, present-day intruded several times.
These books have never been perfect and I’ve loved them anyway, but this one set my teeth on edge. I only read to the end because I wanted to see if I was right about whodunit, which I was, and I’ve already forgotten it. I never thought I could give a Kinsey Millhone book only two stars, but Kinsey as a rape apologist, who’da thunk it.
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