Other editions of book U Is For Undertow

Calling T is for Trespass “taut, terrifying, transfixing and terrific,” USA Today went on to ask, “What does it take to write twenty novels about the same character and manage to create a fresh, genre-bending novel every time?” It’s a question worth pondering. Through twenty excursions into the dark side of the human soul, Sue Grafton has never written the same book twice. And so it is with this, her twenty-first. Once again, she breaks genre formulas, giving us a twisting, complex, surprise-filled, and totally satisfying thriller. It’s April, 1988, a month before Kinsey Millhone’s thirty-eighth birthday, and she’s alone in her office doing paperwork when a young man arrives unannounced. He has a preppy air about him and looks as if he’d be carded if he tried to buy booze, but Michael Sutton is twenty-seven, an unemployed college dropout. Twenty-one years earlier, a four-year-old girl disappeared. A recent reference to her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories. Sutton now believes he stumbled on her lonely burial when he was six years old. He wants Kinsey’s help in locating the child’s remains and finding the men who killed her. It’s a long shot but he’s willing to pay cash up front, and Kinsey agrees to give him one day. As her investigation unfolds, she discovers Michael Sutton has an uneasy relationship with the truth. In essence, he’s the boy who cried wolf. Is his current story true or simply one more in a long line of fabrications? Grafton moves the narrative between the eighties and the sixties, changing points of view, building multiple subplots, and creating memorable characters. Gradually, we see how they all connect. But at the beating center of the novel is Kinsey Millhone, sharp- tongued, observant, a loner—“a heroine,” said The New York Times Book Review, “with foibles you can laugh at and faults you can forgive.”

Sue Grafton takes the mystery genre to new heights with this twisting, complex #1 New York Times bestseller that draws private investigator Kinsey Millhone into a case shrouded in the sins of the past.Looking solemn, Michael Sutton arrives in Kinsey Millhone's office with a story to tell. When he was six, he says, he wandered into the woods and saw two men digging a hole. They claimed they were pirates, looking for buried treasure. Now, all these years later, the long-forgotten events have come back to him—and he has pieced them together with news reports from the time, becoming convinced that he witnesses the burial of a kidnapped child.Kinsey has nearly nothing to go on. Sutton doesn't even know where he was that day—and, she soon discovers, he has a history of what might generously be called an active imagination. Despite her doubts, Kinsey sets out to track down the so-called burial site. And what's found there pulls her into a hidden current of deceit stretching back more than twenty years...

In 1960s Santa Teresa, California, a child is kidnapped and never returned. Twenty years later, Michael Sutton contacts private detective Kinsey Millhone for help. He claims to have recalled a disturbing memory which might just provide the key to the mystery. He now believes he stumbled across the kidnappers burying Mary Claire Fitzhugh's body... Michael's account is indistinct and even members of his family try to discredit his evidence. But Kinsey is certain there is something vital within Michael’s recollections. As the protagonists of the tragedy are gradually brought to light, the truth finally begins to emerge. And while stepping back into the past, Kinsey uncovers more about her own history too...

When an innocent looking young man walks into her office unannounced, PI Kinsey Millhone cannot imagine what kind of trouble he could be in. Turns out the clean-cut Michael Sutton is older than he looks and is suffering from a resurrected past traumatic memory. When he was only six years old he believes he stumbled across the burial of an even younger little girl, who had gone missing and who--20-something years later--was still an open missing-person case. Michael asks Millhone to investigate. Quickly, however, Millhone, who's fast-approaching her 38th birthday and has been in this line of business long enough to know when the pieces don't fit together, begins to suspect that Michael's not exactly telling her the full truth. This is Sue Grafton's 21st addition to her Alphabet Series, and yet it reads with as much energy and freshness as brand-new series. Full of all the fun that readers have come to expect, U FOR UNDERTOW dishes up a satisfying Grafton-Millhone serving of surprises and suspense.

In 1960s Santa Teresa, California, a child is kidnapped and never returned. Twenty years later, Michael Sutton contacts private detective Kinsey Millhone for help, believing that he had stumbled across the kidnappers burying Mary Claire Fitzhugh's body... Michael's account is indistinct - he was only six years old at the time of the kidnapping. But Kinsey is certain there is something vital within Michael's recollections. And even when what is eventually unearthed isn't what anyone expected, she can't quite let go of the case. As the protagonists of the tragedy are gradually brought to light, from Country Club parents to their free-living, hippy children, the truth finally begins to emerge. And while stepping back into the past, Kinsey discovers more about her own history too...