Synopses & Reviews
The house on Old Reservoir Road appeared to be in the final phases of construction. I spotted the site as I rounded the curve, recognizing the unfinished structure from Fiona Purcells description. To my right, I could see a portion of the reservoir for which the road was named. Brunswick Lake fills the bottom of a geological bowl, a spring-fed body that supplied the town with drinking water for many years. In 1953 a second, larger catch basin was established, and now Brunswick is little more than an irregular blue splotchlet on maps of the area. Swimming and boating are forbidden, but seasonally the migrating water birds rest on the placid surface as they make their way south. The surrounding hills are austere, gentle swells rising to the mountains that mark the northernmost boundary of the Santa Teresa city limits.
I parked my VW on the gravel berm and crossed the two-lane road. The steeply pitched lot was still bare of landscaping and consisted entirely of raw dirt and boulders with a dusting of weeds taking hold. At street level, a big commercial Dumpster was piled high with debris. A small grove of signs planted in the yard announced the names of the building contractor, the painting contractor, and the architect, though Mrs. Purcell had been quick to assure me by phone that shed drawn up the plans herself. The design—if thats what you want to call it—would have been approved by the Department of Defense: an implacable series of concrete boxes, staunch and unadorned, stacked up against the hillside under a pale November sun. The facade was as blank as a bunker, a radical contrast to the sprawling Spanish-style homes on adjacent properties. Somewhere to the rear of the house, there must have been a driveway leading to garages and a parking pad, but I opted for the stairs built into the barren hillside. At six a.m., Id done a three-mile jog, but Id skipped my Friday-morning weight lifting to keep this early appointment. It was just now eight oclock and I could feel my butt dragging as I mounted the steps.
Behind me, I could hear a dog bark. Its deep-throated yaps echoed through the canyon, conveying a message of excitement. A woman was calling, “Trudy! Truuddy!” while the dog barked on. She emitted a piercing whistle, and a young German shepherd came bounding over the hill, heading in my direction at full speed. I waited, bracing myself for the force of muddy feet, but at the last possible second, the whistle came again and the dog sprinted off. I continued climbing Fionas wide concrete steps, tacking twice before I reached the upper terrace with its plain limestone portico that shaded the front entrance. By then, my thighs were burning, I was huffing and puffing, and my heart was rat-a-tat-tatting like machine-gun fire. I could have sworn there was less oxygen in the air up here, but Id actually only climbed the equivalent of two stories and I knew it was probably no more than three- to four-hundred feet above sea level. I turned, pretending to admire the view while I recovered my breath.
From this aerie, I could see the broad, shimmering band of the Pacific Ocean stitched to the shoreline some five miles away. Before me, the day was so clear, I could almost count the mountain ridges on the islands twenty-six miles out. Behind me, the clouds were peering over the mountaintops, a fast-moving blanket of dark gray in advance of a storm. San Francisco, four hundred miles to the north of us, was already feeling its lash.
By the time I rang the bell, my breathing had slowed and Id done a quick mental review of the subject I was here to discuss. Fiona Purcells ex-husband, Dr. Dowan Purcell, had been missing for nine weeks. Shed had a messenger deliver a manila envelope filled with newspaper clippings that recapped events surrounding his disappearance. Id sat in my office, tilted back in my swivel chair, my Sauconys propped on the edge of my desk while I studied the articles shed sent. Shed arranged them chronologically but had otherwise presented them without editorial comment. Id been following the story in the local papers, but Id never anticipated my involve- ment in the case. I found it helpful to have the sequence laid out again in this truncated form.
I noticed that over the course of nine weeks, the character of the coverage had shifted from the first seventy-two hours of puzzlement, through days of feverish speculation, and into the holding pattern that represented the current state of the investigation. Nothing new had come to light—not that there was ever much to report. In the absence of fresh revelations, the publics fascination had begun to dwindle and the medias attention to the matter had become as chilly and abbreviated as the brief November days. It is a truth of human nature that we can ponder lifes mysteries for only so long before we lose interest and move on to something else.
Dr. Purcell had been gone since Friday, September 12, and the lengthy column inches initially devoted to his disappearance were now reduced to an occasional mention nearly ritual in its tone. The details were recounted, but the curiosity had shifted to more compelling events. Dr. Purcell, sixty-nine years old, had practiced family medicine in Santa Teresa since 1944, specializing in geriatrics for the last fifteen years. Hed retired in 1981. Six months later, hed been licensed as the administrator of a nursing care facility called Pacific Meadows, which was owned by two businessmen. On the Friday night in question, hed worked late, remaining in his office to review paperwork related to the operation of the nursing home. According to witnesses, it was close to nine oclock when he stopped at the front desk and said good-night to the nurses on duty. At that hour, the occupants had settled down for the night. The corridors were empty and the residents doors were closed against the already dimmed hall lights. Dr. Purcell had paused to chat with an elderly woman sitting in the lobby in her wheelchair. After a cursory conversation, less than a minute by her report, the doctor passed through the front door and into the night. He retrieved his car from his reserved space at the north side of the complex, pulled out of the lot, and drove off into the Inky Void from which hed never emerged. The Santa Teresa Police and the Santa Teresa County Sheriffs Departments had devoted endless hours to the case, and I couldnt think what avenues remained that hadnt already been explored by local law enforcement.
I rang the bell again. Fiona Purcell had told me she was on her way out of town, a five-day trip to San Francisco to purchase furniture and antiques for a client of her interior design firm. According to the papers, Fiona and the doctor had been divorced for years. Idly, I was wondering why shed been the one who called me instead of his current wife, Crystal.
I saw a face appear in one of the two glass panels that flanked the entrance. When she opened the door, I saw that she was already dressed for travel in a double-breasted pin-striped suit with wide lapels. She held a hand out. “Ms. Millhone? Fiona Purcell. Sorry to make you wait. I was at the back of the house. Please come in.”
“Thanks. You can call me Kinsey if you like. Nice meeting you,” I said.
We shook hands and I moved into the entrance hall. Her handshake was limp, always startling in someone who, otherwise, seems brisk and businesslike. I placed her in her late sixties, close to Dr. Purcells age. Her hair was dyed a dark brown, parted on one side, with puffy bangs and clusters of artificially constructed curls pulled away from her face and secured by rhinestone combs, a style affected by glamour-girl movie stars of the 1940s. I half-expected an appearance by John Agar or Fred MacMurray, some poor, feckless male whod fallen prey to this vixen with her fierce shoulder pads. She was saying, “We can talk in the living room. Youll have to pardon the mess.”
Scaffolding had been erected in the foyer, reaching to the lofty ceiling. Drop cloths lined the stairs and the wide corridor leading to the rear of the house. To one side of the stairs, there was a console table and a streamlined chrome lamp. Currently, we seemed to be the only two on the premises.
“Your flights at ten?” I asked.
“Dont worry about it. Im eight minutes from the airport. We have at least an hour. May I offer you coffee? Im having mine in here.”
“No, thanks. Ive had two cups this morning and thats my limit most days.”
Fiona moved to the right and I followed in her wake, crossing a broad expanse of bare cement. I said, “When do the floors go in?”
“These are the floors.”
I said, “Ah,” and made a mental note to quit asking about matters far beyond my ken.
The interior of the house had the cool, faintly damp smell of plaster and fresh paint. All the walls in range were a dazzling white, the windows tall and stark, unadorned by any curtains or drapes. A sly glance behind me revealed what was probably the dining room on the far side of the entry- way, empty of furniture, subdivided by rhomboids of clear morning light. The echo of our footsteps sounded like a small parade.
In the living room, Fiona gestured toward one of two matching armchairs, chunky and oversized, upholstered in a neutral-toned fabric that blended with the gray cement floor. A large area rug showed a densely woven grid of black lines on gray. I sat when she did, watching as she surveyed the space with the practiced eye of an aesthete. The furnishings were striking: light wood, tubular steel, stark geometric shapes. An enormous round mirror, resting in a crescent of chrome, hung above the fireplace. A tall silver and ivory coffeepot, with a matching creamer and sugar bowl, sat on a silver tray on the beveled-glass coffee table. She paused to refill her cup. “Are you a fan of art deco?”
“I dont know much about it.”
“Ive been collecting for years. The rugs a Da Silva Bruhns. This is Wolfgang Tumpels work, if youre familiar with the name,” she said, nodding at the coffee service.
“Beautiful,” I murmured, clueless.
Review
"Unlike many detective series, Grafton's seem only to get better each time out." Entertainment Weekly
Review
"[P]art of the charm of Grafton's mysteries is...the novelty of watching classic noir tales unfold in a time [the Eighties] that's not quite antique but not entirely modern either. Grafton's other talent is spinning a well-crafted mystery....Although Grafton mistakenly meanders into a strained side-plot that involves a pair of patricidal brothers, the book's overarching story delivers exactly what it promises: a compelling mystery that manages to pull off a surprise at the end. And as a humanized female version of Dashiell Hammett's loner hard-boiled detective, Millhone is still an oddly compelling presence in the world of mystery novels....Grafton's novels are timeless reading for those moments when all you want is a good puzzle." Janelle Brown, Salon.com
Synopsis
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 wasnt Crystal who called Kinsey. It was Purcells ex-wife, Fiona. Everything about their meeting made Kinsey uneasy. Fionas manner was high-handed and her expectations unrealistic. Kinseys instincts told her to refuse the job, yet she ended up saying, Ill do what I can, but I make no promises.
It was a decision shed 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 hes dead. The staff at the nursing home is convinced hes been kidnapped, and one of his daughters, having consulted a psychic, is certain that hes trapped in a dark place, though she doesnt 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.
Synopsis
She's every lover's feisty girlfriend.
She's every father's courageous daughter.
She's every woman's tough, vulnerable, and spirited alter ego.
She's Kinsey Millhone, familiar to millions of readers around the globe, and she's back in full stride in P is for Peril, her latest venture into the darker side of the human soul. Mordant, mocking, and deceptively low-key, hers is a voice we know we can trust, from a character we've come to love.
Through fifteen novels, Sue Grafton has gone from strength to strength, never writing the same book twice. So it's no surprise that she has taken on new territory in her sixteenth, this time entering the world of noir. It's a world cast in shades of black amid shafts of steel and silver, a shadow land in which the mysterious disappearance of a prominent physician leads Kinsey into a danger-filled maze of duplicity and double-dealing as she taps into the intricacies of a cunning Medicare fraud.
P is for Peril: the novel in which Millhone stakes her life on a thin thread of intuition because the facts glint elusively out of reach and only guesses offer any shot at the truth.
"Unlike many detective series, Grafton's seems only to get better each time out," wrote Entertainment Weekly, and P is for Peril is a case in point. Pushing herself, reaching further with each new book, Sue Grafton delivers every time.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Sue Grafton is published in 28 countries and 26 languagesincluding Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. Books in her alphabet series, begun in 1982, are international bestsellers with readership in the millions. And like Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Robert Parker, and John D. MacDonaldthe best of her breedSue Grafton has earned new respect for the mystery form. Her readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances, and her abundant storytelling talents.
Sue divides her time between Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky, where she was born and raised. She has three children and two grandchildren. Grafton has been married to Steve Humphrey for more than twenty years. She loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine.