P Is For Peril

By: Sue Grafton

Narrated by: Judy Kaye

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.©2001 by Sue Grafton; (P)2001 Random House, Inc.; Random House AudioBooks, a Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“P IS FOR PERIL CRACKLES WITH SUSPENSE AND POPS WITH SURPRISES.”
–Newsday

“GRAFTON COOKS UP SCENARIOS THAT GET YOUR WHEELS TURNING . . . SHE’LL SEE TO IT THAT YOU’RE UP HALF THE NIGHT READING TO THE END.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“SHARP-EYED AND SHARP-TONGUED [KINSEY MILLHONE] IS AS CAPABLE AND ACERBIC AS EVER.”
–The Wall Street Journal

Another Alphabet mystery well done!

l love the voices and characters created by Judy Kaye. She is engaging and entertaining. A few unnecessary sexual references in this book.