A is for Alibi

A Kinsey Millhone Mystery

By: Sue Grafton

Narrated by: Mary Peiffer

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. Plenty of people had reason to want him dead. But the police thought his wife Nikki , with motive, access and opportunity, was the #1 suspect. The jury thought so too.

Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki hires Kinsey Millhone, a gutsy P.I., to find the real killer. The trail is cold, but Kinsey finds a lead that brings her face-to-face with the murderer!

This is the first in the popular series featuring California investigator Kinsey Millhone. She's 32, twice divorced, no kids, an ex-cop who likes her work...and who works strictly alone!

Don't miss the other titles in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mystery Series.

©1982 Sue Grafton (P)1993 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Grafton has created a woman we feel we know, a tough cookie with a soft center, a gregarious loner....Smart, well-paced and very funny." (Newsweek)

"ALIBI"

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

GREAT ;LISTEN ,VERY ENJOYABLE

What was one of the most memorable moments of A is for Alibi?

MY 1st Sue Grafton book ...I will get more!

Have you listened to any of Mary Peiffer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

also my 1st Mary Peiffers naration...I like her!!!

Language

The bad language is often. Lots if S, Gd and F. Too much for my taste

Love the series!

I’m so sad Sue Grafton didn’t get to finish the alphabet! This is one of my favorite series! Kinsey is relatable & loveable! Definitely recommend for those who like women leads & women sleuths.

great

loved it, I had read this years ago and I still enjoy the story

Enough of the complaints!

I don’t know what all the complaints are about? For a first book of a series, it is well developed, well written, compelling, and I cared about the characters. Grafton's writing style shares more description than many authors, yes, unnecessary, but these observations are where her humor shines. I laughed out loud many times at these humorous descriptions. This is one of the rare books where the climax is within moments of the end of the book with a very short falling action. The story is self-contained. I look forward to reading many more books in this series. The narrator is pitch perfect!

Took some getting used to

This is my first Sue Grafton/alphabet novels. I had to really work to get used to her writing style. She seemed to put an emphasis on explaining details that didn't seem to pertain to the storyline. I will try another to see if it is my kind of book.

Ok

Overall an acceptable listen. Dragged in parts. A lot of descriptive wording that added little (although the images were nice). Worth a listen if you have a credit laying around.

Kinda boring

Glad this was not my first experience with Kinsey. I was not impressed with her. The story had a lot of filler. But it still would have had some degree of entertainment value if it wasn’t for a very poor reading. This book was not a performance at all. It was just a mediocre reading. Judy Kaye performs this book and the rest of the series with depth, inflection, humor and appropriate voices. But she did not perform the unabridged.
I only listened to this because I wanted to get the whole story. It was just OK. After all it was “A” and the stories would get better but probably not the reader.

starting off with a bang

Kinsey Millhone is 32. She starts off by explaining that she’s a private investigator licensed by California, that she’s been divorced twice, and that she recently killed a man. And that first paragraph starts a book and a series that goes on to shine with a power and a brilliance that few other book series can achieve.

But first, the crime.

Nikki Fife has just been released from prison, after serving eight years for killing her husband. Now she’s out, she still claims that she’s innocent, and she wants Kinsey to find out who killed Laurence Fife. A prominent divorce lawyer, he was known as much for his personal dalliances as he was for being a bear in court. Nikki had only been married to him for four years. She had known about his affairs, but she hadn’t cared. It was how she’d met him, actually—she was his mistress when he was still married to his first wife Gwen.

Laurence had been killed with a contaminated allergy pill. Someone had laced one of his pills with oleander, a toxic plant that grows wild in California. Kinsey thinks that the case was pretty straightforward. She had been at Nikki’s trial. Laurence had hired Kinsey a time or two on his divorce cases. But what didn’t come out at the trial is that there was a woman in Los Angeles who had been killed the same way, shorty after Laurence Fife had been.

Libby Glass was young, mid-twenties, working for a business management firm that was putting all of the files for Laurence and his partner Charlie Scorsoni onto computer. Santa Teresa Homicide Detective Con Dolan had suspected that Libby had been having an affair with Laurence, and that was why Nikki killed her too. But he couldn’t prove it. He couldn’t prove a connection between Libby and Laurence, other than her work product, so it was left out of the trial.

But now Kinsey is on the case, and she’s not interested in stopping until she finds out what really happened. Her investigation takes her from Santa Teresa to Los Angeles to Las Vegas, tracking down the family and former boyfriend of Libby Glass, Laurence’s former secretary, and even his ex-wife and her kids, and it ends with Kinsey putting all the pieces together and finding the true killer, and then almost losing her own life in the process.

A Is for Alibi is the first book in the iconic Kinsey Millhone series. I first read this decades ago, when I was in my 20s and figuring out what I liked to read after all those classics I had to read in college. I fell in love with her almost immediately, and I more years than not, I would start the series all over again when the latest letter came out, so this is the Kinsey book I’ve read most often over the years. It’s been many years since I found the time to pull it out and revisit it, so this year I decided to try something new: an audio book.

I listened to A Is for Alibi, narrated by Mary Peiffer, and I loved it. Listening to this book is just good, old-fashioned fun. While some of the book is a little dated now, but hearing this story in Kinsey’s voice, her snark ringing through loud and clear in each moment, is a treat better than a peanut butter and pickle sandwich (seriously, who eats that?!).

But my favorite thing about A Is for Alibi, and all of Sue Grafton’s delicious novels that come after, is how Kinsey meticulously goes through the case, tiny piece by tiny piece, double-checking everything. Sue Grafton leaves the tiniest trail of bread crumbs, and as I’m wondering how all this could possibly come together into a cohesive crime, Kinsey is suddenly gluing all those tiny breadcrumbs together and creating a beautiful mosaic that fits together like magic. I love Kinsey Millhone, I love this series, and getting to listen to it read to me has been a fantastic experience. I definitely recommend this one on audio.

Good book, but they get so much better as you read them

I read the last 3 that have been out before I decided to start at the beginning. Huge difference... But that's what twenty years of developing a character does.. Sue has perfected Kinsey now, but it is nice to start from the beginning and see where it started. They need to redo the narration on this tho. Very outdated and couldn't stand it for the first bit. The rest of the time I just tolerated her.