Overall review:
Okay anthology from an excellent author. Nine of the twenty-three stories in this collection are Kinsey Millhone detective stories, with a few standout pieces ("Between the Sheets", "The Parker Shotgun", "Non Sung Smoke", "Falling Off the Roof" and "A Little Missionary Work").
Also worthwhile is her between-story-sections essay "An Eye for an I: Justice, Morality, the Nature of the Hard-boiled Private Investigator, and All That Existential Stuff", which is part autobiography and part manifesto, the latter element addressing Grafton's feelings about the ever-changing detective genre. This is an admirable, fun read.
The remainder of the pieces - all loosely semi-autobiographical stories - revolve around the feelings and perceptions of Kit Blue, a daughter of two alcoholic parents, whose differing personalities and actions scarred and molded their offspring. The stories span the first twenty-nine years of Kit's life; they're well-written, personal, angry and often warm. That said, psychoanalytical melodrama isn't my bag, so I didn't get into them, with the exception of "That's Not an Easy Way to Go", "Lost People" and "Clue".
Kinsey and Me is worth checking out from the library, at best - unless you're into her non-detective fiction work, also.
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