M Is For Murder - 1st Edition/1st Printing

There are few writers able to sustain the solid mixture of detection, narrative energy and cultural observations that one finds in Grafton." -- Washington Post Book World

"M" is for money. Lots of it. "M" is for Malek Construction, the $40 million company that grew out of modest soil to become one of the big three in California construction, one of the few still in family hands.

"M" is for the Malek family: four sons now nearing middle age who stand to inherit a fortune - four men with very different outlooks, temperaments, and needs, linked only by blood and money. Eighteen years ago, one of them - angry, troubled, and in trouble - went missing.

"M" is for Millhone, hired to trace that missing black sheep brother.

"M" is for memories, none of them happy. The bitter memoirs of an embattled family. This prodigal son will find no welcome at his family's table. "M" is for malice.

And in brutal consequence, "M" is for murder, the all-too-common outcome of familiar...

Publishers Weekly

Approaching middle age warily, PI Kinsey Millhone of the Southern California coast is mildly depressed, romantically vulnerable and in the process of reassessing her family ties. Yet, when it comes to her professional abilities, she's at the top of her form, as this deftly plotted and absorbing novel (her 13th appearance, after L Is for Lawless) proves. Bader Malek, a local industrial tycoon, has died, and his four sons now stand to inherit a substantial fortune. But one of them, Guy, has been missing since 1968. A drug addict, ne'er-do-well and all-around miscreant, Guy had been disinherited by his exasperated father shortly before he vanished. But that particular will has disappeared, and Kinsey has been hired by the family to find out if Guy is still alive and thus in line to collect his original portion of the estate. She quickly succeeds in locating him and brings back a sweet, guileless and totally reformed man. But is he? The three other brothersa truly devious, arrogant and greedy lotare deeply ambivalent about Guy's return. A murder in the family leaves the surviving Malek kin as prime suspects. This is a subtle and swiftly moving novel, pleasantly unpredictable, with an agreeable overlay of smoldering romance, as fellow PI and former lover Robert Dietz reenters Kinsey's life. Grafton's heroine -- more introspective, yet still feisty and surefooted -- leads this finely tuned and at times electrifying tale to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion.