Quartet of crime-busters from arcane to addictive (Sue Grafton)

From Winnipeg Free Press --

Quartet of crime-busters from arcane to addictive --

By John Sullivan --
12/12/2009 --

Long-running mystery series ebb and flow, until they crash and burn, wither away or (rarely) expire with a bang, their stars deceased or honorably pensioned off.

So it's gratifying to find Sue Grafton still surfing the flow with the 21st Kinsey Millhone alphabet caper, U is for Undertow (Putnam, 416 pages, $35).

A poignant tale of lives left fractured by the accidental death of a four-year-old tot during a botched, decades-old kidnapping by a pair of troubled teens, Undertow has no true villains, only victims.

Grafton is sure-footed here, with Kinsey's familiar family-driven angst a backdrop to her realistic, methodical sorting of a pitiful crime involving all-too-human players. One of her best.