W is for Wasted - Sue Grafton

I appreciate that over the course of all the books in the Alphabet Series, Kinsey Millhone manages to advance in one way or another. What I appreciate less is the mundane details of Kinsey's life. I actually spent two pages reading about what was happening to her car in a car wash. At that point I considered packing it in on this series. So what if I received X for free in exchange for a review, is that worth my time reading about what someone had for lunch? And how many soft rag mechanisms are inside the car wash? But, on the mystery side, this one played out fairly well.

Kinsey is called when a man turns up dead with Kinsey's number in his pocket. The guy is homeless and an alcoholic so Kinsey tracks down his homeless friends and tries to figure out the man's identity. The homeless friends are less than helpful, but she does get just enough information to start unraveling the thread. What unravels is a distant kinship to the man through her father's side of the family, a side not covered in the prior books. 

In what seems to be an unrelated story, a private eye of unscrupulous practices also turns up dead. The two tales grow slowly together as we are given back story through the point of view of the dead detective. 

What was unexpected was the extended commentary on homelessness presented in the book. It was well balanced and looked at the issue from a lot of angles. I appreciated Grafton's choice to not make the issue cut and dry and the attention to nuance was well done. 

A few of Kinsey's love interests pop up to provide some continuity color. All in all, the mystery was one of the better of the series, but the over-described banality of everyday life got a little exasperating in this edition.

3/5 Stars.