P Is for Peril: A Kinsey Milhone Mystery (Sue Grafton) [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Sue Grafton (Author), Judy Kaye (Reader)

Book Description

Series: Sue Grafton | Publication Date: June 5, 2001

Dr. Dowan Purcell had been missing for nine weeks when Kinsey got a call asking her to take on the case. A specialist in geriatric medicine, Purcell was a prominent member of the Santa Theresa medical community, and the police had done a thorough job. Purcell had no known enemies and seemed content with his life. At the time of his disappearance, he was running a nursing care facility where both the staff and the patients loved him. He adored his second wife, Crystal, and doted on their two-year-old son.

It wasn’t Crystal who called Kinsey. It was Purcell’s ex-wife, Fiona. Everything about their meeting made Kinsey uneasy. Fiona’s manner was high-handed and her expectations unrealistic. Kinsey’s instincts told her to refuse the job, yet she ended up saying, “I’ll do what I can, but I make no promises.”

It was a decision she’d live to regret.

Pursuing the mysterious disappearance of Purcell, Kinsey crashes into a wall of speculation. It seems everyone has a theory. The cops think he went on a bender and is too ashamed to come home. Fiona is sure he ran off to get away from Crystal, and Crystal is just as sure he’s dead. The staff at the nursing home is convinced he’s been kidnapped, and one of his daughters, having consulted a psychic, is certain that he’s trapped in a dark place, though she doesn’t know where. Kinsey is awash in explanations and sorely lacking in facts. Then pure chance leads her in another direction, and she soon finds herself in a dangerous shadow land, where duplicity and double-dealing are the reality and, with the truth glinting elusively out of reach, she must stake her life on a thin thread of intuition.

P Is for Peril: Kinsey Millhone’s latest venture into the darker side of the human soul.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Dowan Purcell, a respected physician who operates a nursing home, disappears, his ex-wife hires Santa Teresa PI Kinsey Millhone to look into it. Fiona Purcell is still seething over Dow's affair and subsequent marriage to Crystal, a former stripper, yet they're still friends, and she seems worried. But when his body is discovered, she's among the suspects. Both of Dow's wives, at least one of his business partners, and perhaps even Crystal's teenage daughter had motives to kill.

While in her most recent adventures (N Is for Noose, O Is for Outlaw) Kinsey has acquired new digs, an extended family, and a few more gray hairs, in this one (which takes place some time in the mid-'80s), she's 36, still living in the remodeled garage that was blown up in an earlier novel. Easier than a facelift, and while Sue Grafton is a solid enough writer to pull it off, dedicated Kinsey fans will miss the more complex and multidimensional character who aged so ruefully and interestingly in the '90s. This isn't Grafton's strongest case; it's hard to care about any of Purcell's women or his associates. More exciting is the secondary plot, which involves a handsome landlord who offers Kinsey the new office space she's been seeking and turns out to be a lot more trouble than she bargained for. Despite its somewhat plodding pace and the echo of a more evolved heroine that rings through its pages, Grafton's many fans will probably shoot P Is for Peril right to the top of the bestseller list. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

PI Kinsey Millhone's trademark dry sense of humor is largely absent in the first half of the 15th book in this justifiably popular series, though it resurfaces as the suspense finally begins to build in the second half. In the bleak November of 1986, Kinsey looks into the disappearance of Dr. Dowan Purcell, who's been missing for nine weeks. Dr. Purcell is an elderly physician who runs a nursing home that's being investigated for Medicare fraud. His ex-wife, Fiona, hires Kinsey when it seems as though the police have given up on the search. Fiona thinks that he could be simply hiding out somewhere, especially since he's pulled a disappearance stunt twice before. However, Purcell's current wife, Crystal, believes that he may be dead. Kinsey is dubious about finding any new leads after so much time has elapsed. She's also worried about having to move out of the office space she now occupies in the suite owned by her lawyer, and between her interviews with suspects she tries to rent a new office from a pair of brothers whose mysterious background begins to make her suspicious. Grafton's Santa Teresa seems more like Ross Macdonald's town of the same name than ever before, with dysfunctional families everywhere jostling for the private eye's attention. The novel has a hard-edged, wintry ambience, echoed in Fiona Purcell's obsession with angular art deco furniture and architecture. Unfortunately, Grafton's evocation of the noir crime novels and styles of the 1940s, although atmospheric, doesn't make up for a lack of suspense and lackluster characters. (June 4)Forecast: With a 600,000-copy first printing and a national author tour, this Literary Guild Main Selection is sure to shoot well up the bestseller lists.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (June 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375416846
• ISBN-13: 978-0375416842
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (269 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( G ) > Grafton, Sue

More About the Author

New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton is published in twenty-eight countries and twenty-six languages--including Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. Books in her alphabet series, begun in 1982, are international bestsellers with readership in the millions. And like Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Grafton has earned new respect for the mystery form. Readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances, and her abundant storytelling prowess. She has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America (2009) and is a recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award (2004).

Sue Grafton has been married to Steve Humphrey for more than thirty years, and they divide their time between Montecito, California, and Louisville, Kentucky, where she was born and raised. Grafton, who has three children and four grandchildren, loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Did Kinsey get lost somewhere?, August 2, 2001

By 

Mary Ann Hofmann (Stow, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: P Is for Peril: A Kinsey Milhone Mystery (Sue Grafton) (Audio Cassette)

I am an avid Kinsey Millhone fan, and was anxious to get my hands on this lastest installment to the series. However, I found this one very disappointing. The plot was an overly used one with characters that weren't developed or explained thoroughly enough. Throughout the book, I kept waiting to find out why things that had been emphasized were key to the story, but it just never happened.

I thought the subplot with the two brothers had much more potential. Developing that storyline would have been far more interesting.

The old Kinsey just didn't quite come through here. She didn't have that edge that makes her so interesting. I've always enjoyed the way she thinks and operates. This seemed to be just a shadow of her former self.

I was willing to forgive all of this just because I do adore the series, but I was left cold with the ending. Grafton has always been a master at pulling it together in a way that even if she hadn't thoroughly spelled out the way things were, there wasn't any confusion as to what happened. That was not the case here. I read the last 25 pages twice to see if I missed something, but I have more questions than is comfortable for a mystery novel. There was just too much left unsaid and unexplained which I found extremely frustrating.

By far, my least favorite.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Epilogue?, June 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: P Is for Peril (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I've read every one of Sue Grafton's alphabet series. P is for Peril is up to her standards in every way but one - the ending. Each book in the series ends with an epilogue that wraps up the loose ends - each book but this one. When I finished, I looked for the epilogue to clarify the central question: Who did it and why? I then re-read parts of the story looking for additional clues. The problem is, I can come up with a number of different answers to the central question. Did Ms. Grafton want to keep us guessing? Am I missing something? What's up?

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An unfinished work?, June 14, 2001

By 

Mark M. Thomase (Maine) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: P Is for Peril (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) (Hardcover)

While Sue Grafton's writing style sparkles, as usual, with wit and vivid description, I couldn't help but think that the author should have kept on writing until she actually finished the book. The book contains a plot and a major subplot, and neither one is brought to a satisfactory resolution. Questions remain unanswered, loose ends are not entirely tied up. In fact it occured to me, some time after I read the final page, that heroine Kinsey Millhone had not actually told us the identity of the killer or the motive! Perhaps Grafton is being avant-garde; like many of her other fans, though, I would have appreciated a closing note "Respectfully submitted."