Abandoned by user

This was definitely not my favorite Kinsey. Don't get me wrong, I still read it in about two hours, because Grafton's writing is just that engaging. But overall, I didn't feel that the story was as strong as some of the other installments.

The book begins with the murder of a claims adjuster who has become a friend of Kinsey's. Simultaneously, a corporate asshole is sent out to the Santa Teresa division of the insurance co where Kinsey is co-located to try to figure out why their claims numbers are out of whack. He pretty quickly gets on Kinsey's last nerve (I don't think she has that many nerves to spare, so this takes somewhere in the neighborhood of immediately), so she heads off to work on an investigation of possible insurance fraud by a woman named Bibianna Diaz.

This rapidly turns into a total shitshow, with an attempting kidnapping of Bibianna. It turns out, Bibianna was previously engaged to Raymond, the head of a California insurance fraud crime ring involving faked car accidents, staged car accidents, and all kinds of other nonsense. Oh, and murder. When Bibianna broke off the engagement she basically ghosted him. Kinsey gets herself arrested and thrown in jail with Bibianna and ultimately agrees to go "undercover" to try to help the PD make their case against Raymond.

Unfortunately, the entire book felt sort of like farce. The Millhone books tend in that direction anyway, but there is usually an undercurrent of seriousness, and characters who are reasonably believable. Pretty much everyone in this book except for Kinsey, and one of the young claims adjusters who asked Kinsey to work on the fraud case, felt like caricatures of people who might exist. 

And, guys, Raymond - the villain - was the worst combination of pathetic, annoying, violent, and just flat out gross. He is basically trying to force Bibianna into marrying him, which nearly made me retch. I was wholly unconvinced that he had the brains to run the operation that he was supposedly running. His violence was erratic and often unintelligible. 

Anyway, I just wasn't crazy about this one. It was OK, but I'm hoping that the letter "I" is better!