"V" Is for Vengeance

"V" Is for Vengeance
Author(s)	Sue Grafton
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Alphabet Mysteries
Genre(s)	Mystery
Publisher	G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date	2011-11-21
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
ISBN	978-0-399-15786-8
Preceded by	"U" Is for Undertow
Followed by	"W" (title TBA)

"V" Is for Vengeance is the twenty-second novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California. The novel, set in 1988, was released in the United States in November 2011.

Plot

For the fourth straight novel in the Kinsey Milhone series (dating back to "S" Is for Silence), the viewpoint alternates between Milhone and other characters, principally Nora Vogelsang and Lorenzo Dante. The opening chapter, however, is told from the perspective of a well-to-do young man, Phillip Lanahan, who borrows money from Dante, misses the payback date, and then loses it playing poker in Vegas. Dante and his brother Cappi show up, and Dante agrees to take Phillip's Porsche as satisfaction of the debt. However, after Dante sends Phillip and Cappi up to look at the car, Cappi has thugs throw Peter off the top of the parking garage to his death.

In the main storyline, Milhone witnesses a woman shoplifting with a confederate inside Nordstrom's. She tells a nearby clerk, who alerts store security, and they capture and arrest the woman, named Audrey, before she can escape. While this is going on, Milhone follows her confederate and is almost run over by her in the parking garage. Right after her release from jail, Audrey apparently commits suicide. Shortly thereafter, Milhone runs into a former boyfriend in the police department, Cheney Phillips, who is out for the evening with a vice officer, Len Priddy (a friend of Milhone's first husband and a longtime enemy of hers), and his much-younger girlfriend, Abbey. Priddy mocks the theory that Audrey was part of a shoplifting ring, but Audrey's boyfriend hires Milhone to investigate that theory.

Meanwhile, Dante realizes that the police are closing in on his operation. Audrey was head of his shoplifting operation, but Cappi murdered her upon her release from jail because he believed she was about to turn them in. Dante believes that Cappi has been giving information to Priddy to set up his brother, so that he can take over. Nora, who has been drifting apart from her husband for the last three years (which we later learn began with the death of her son from her first marriage, Peter), learns that her lawyer husband is having an affair with his secretary. She decides to sell her possessions so that she can have money to flee, but in trying to see an expensive ring, she is referred to Dante, who is smitten with her and offers her more than fair value for the ring. Dante becomes fascinated by Nora and all that she represents.

Kinsey, still investigating the death of Audrey, is slowly pulled into the world of shoplifting ring. After having a sudden flash of inspiration from an offhanded comment by her client, she returns to Nordstrom's to view the video footage. She notices a bumper sticker on the car that leads her to the accomplice. She discovers after trailing her for several days that she is the drop off person for the stolen goods into a fake charity's drop off box. The bags are picked up minutes later by a truck that takes them to Dante's warehouse for distribution to various second hand stores around Southern California.

After sending Cheney a copy of her findings thus far, he tells her to back off. That could be endangering the life of a confidential informant. This, of course, causes her to do the exact opposite. She investigates further and slowly peels back the layers of the syndicate. He old friend Pinkey (the man who gave her a set of lock picks) comes by her office and asks her to hold on to some photos for him. Kinsey refuses. Later Lt. Priddy comes to the office looking for the photos and threatens Kinsey physically. She manages to track down Pinkey and find out what the photos are about. They are blackmail material that Priddy has been using to get information from Pinkey about Dante's operation.

Pinkey leaves Kinsey's care and returns to his home, where Cappi is holding his wife hostage. Kinsey tracks Pinkey to his home and comes in on the scene. Cappi orders Kinsey to burn the photos and the negatives in the fireplace. Cappi leaves without harming anyone further, but an enraged Pinkey gets his shotgun from the closet and follows him out to the street and shoots at him. Pinkey is a bad shot and misses Cappi completely. Cappi fires off a couple of rounds that seem to miss everyone, and he flees the scene. When Kinsey and Pinkey go back into the house, they see that his wife has been shot. She is taken to the hospital.

Kinsey tracks down Dante and goes to his office to have a conversation with him. Being the straight shooter that she is Kinsey lays into about honor and doing the right thing. Dante sets up an account at the hospital to take care of Pinkey's wife. He also puts his plan to leave the country into motion. After feeding bad information to his brother Cappi, whom he knows is talking to the authorities, Dante tries to convince Nora to join him. He confesses the it was because of him that her son was murdered but that it was done without his consent. He explains his motivation for loaning Phillip the money in the first place. He gives her the details of his trip and leaves hoping that she will join him.

On the day that Dante had told Cappi the computer records are wiped Pinkey's wife dies from her gunshot wound. Kinsey who is going to Dante's warehouse to keep Pinkey from killing Cappi notices the federal authorities staging their raid. She goes to the warehouse to find Pinkey and encounters Dante again. After the raid begins, Pinkey is wounded in the leg by Cappi whom was eventually shot by an cop. Dante punches Kinsey in the face to keep her from getting between Cappi and Pinkey and getting shot herself then disappears into the maze of tunnels under the warehouse. He is picked up by his "real" secretary and makes it to the airport. Dante proves that he is not the monster everyone thinks he is by providing for those in his care. Just as his plane is taxiing away from the gate Nora arrives and departs with him

Weeks later Dante's secretary comes to Kinsey's office to give her an envelope full of cash. To make up for Dante punching her in the face, and also payment for a job he wants her to do for him. Dante had recorded a conversation with Priddy that could further implicate him in trying to gain control of Dante's operations and put him in prison when Kinsey feels he belongs. Wary of contacting the proper authorities who might bury the information and never go after Priddy, Kinsey calls a reporter whom she knows is itching for a good story.

Development history

Publication history

• 2011, USA, G.P. Putnam's Sons, ISBN 978-0-399-15786-8, Pub date 21 November 2011, Hardback

Explanation of the novel's title

Beginning with "A" Is for Alibi in 1982 and continuing with "B" Is for Burglar in 1985 through "U" Is for Undertow in 2009, Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels has been published in alphabetical order with a new book coming out every 12 to 24 months. The name of each upcoming book has been an ongoing source of speculation among fans and in the press. In May 2009, Grafton told Media Bistro that she is "just trying to figure out how to get from "U" Is for Undertow to "Z" Is for Zero" and that "just because she knows the endgame title for Z [...] doesn't mean she knows what V, W, X, and Y will be". In late-April 2010, Grafton reported being "around 100 pages into [writing] it" and that she "hasn't glommed onto a title yet". The book's title was officially announced on the author's Facebook page on April 8, 2011.

External links

• Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series official site