Well this was a fast and funny read. I wish the audio version of The Last Black Unicorn had been available first because listening to this book in Tiffany Haddish's unique delivery would have been even funnier. I may even listen to it when it finally comes through the waitlist from the library. I was first made aware of Tiffany Haddish through a friend who had seen her on SNL and suggested we have a girls evening of watching Girls Trip. This was a great idea as the movie was hilariously raunchy and Tiffany Haddish did really steal the show. Tiffany and I are around the same age, but the similarities pretty much stop there. She grew up in terrible circumstances, abandoned at 3 by her father, raised by a constantly fighting mother and step father among half-siblings who were favored by the adults. Then her stepfather attempted to murder her mother (maybe) and all the kids by cutting the brake lines to the car. Instead of dying, her mother was terribly injured and schizophrenia was triggered. She was then put into foster care where she lived in multiple group homes and suffered terrible beatings until she was eventually placed with her grandmother.After reaching the age of 18 and graduating high school, her grandmother put her out of the house on her own. Tiffany lived out of her car while pursuing a comedy career. She then married an abusive husband and left and remarried and left him again. There are some bright spots in all this but the mere fact that Tiffany can still find humor and light in the world is the brightest of spots. She's great. And hilarious. The book isn't the most polished, but neither is Tiffany, and that feels right.
4/5 Stars.
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.
