When Dowan Purcell, a respected physician who operates a nursing home, disappears, his ex-wife hires Santa Teresa PI Kinsey Millhone to look into it. Fiona Purcell is still seething over Dow's affair and subsequent marriage to Crystal, a former stripper, yet they're still friends, and she seems worried. But when his body is discovered, she's among the suspects. Both of Dow's wives, at least one of his business partners, and perhaps even Crystal's teenage daughter had motives to kill.

While in her most recent adventures (N Is for Noose, O Is for Outlaw) Kinsey has acquired new digs, an extended family, and a few more gray hairs, in this one (which takes place some time in the mid-'80s), she's 36, still living in the remodeled garage that was blown up in an earlier novel. Easier than a facelift, and while Sue Grafton is a solid enough writer to pull it off, dedicated Kinsey fans will miss the more complex and multidimensional character who aged so ruefully and interestingly in the '90s. This isn't Grafton's strongest case; it's hard to care about any of Purcell's women or his associates. More exciting is the secondary plot, which involves a handsome landlord who offers Kinsey the new office space she's been seeking and turns out to be a lot more trouble than she bargained for. Despite its somewhat plodding pace and the echo of a more evolved heroine that rings through its pages, Grafton's many fans will probably shoot P Is for Peril right to the top of the bestseller list. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
PI Kinsey Millhone's trademark dry sense of humor is largely absent in the first half of the 15th book in this justifiably popular series, though it resurfaces as the suspense finally begins to build in the second half. In the bleak November of 1986, Kinsey looks into the disappearance of Dr. Dowan Purcell, who's been missing for nine weeks. Dr. Purcell is an elderly physician who runs a nursing home that's being investigated for Medicare fraud. His ex-wife, Fiona, hires Kinsey when it seems as though the police have given up on the search. Fiona thinks that he could be simply hiding out somewhere, especially since he's pulled a disappearance stunt twice before. However, Purcell's current wife, Crystal, believes that he may be dead. Kinsey is dubious about finding any new leads after so much time has elapsed. She's also worried about having to move out of the office space she now occupies in the suite owned by her lawyer, and between her interviews with suspects she tries to rent a new office from a pair of brothers whose mysterious background begins to make her suspicious. Grafton's Santa Teresa seems more like Ross Macdonald's town of the same name than ever before, with dysfunctional families everywhere jostling for the private eye's attention. The novel has a hard-edged, wintry ambience, echoed in Fiona Purcell's obsession with angular art deco furniture and architecture. Unfortunately, Grafton's evocation of the noir crime novels and styles of the 1940s, although atmospheric, doesn't make up for a lack of suspense and lackluster characters. (June 4)Forecast: With a 600,000-copy first printing and a national author tour, this Literary Guild Main Selection is sure to shoot well up the bestseller lists.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In her 15th alphabetical mystery, Grafton deserves an A for maintaining her series's high standard of excellence. This time private investigator Kinsey Milhone is hired by Dr. Fiona Purcell to find her ex-husband, Dowan, a prominent physician who vanished with his passport and $30,000 in cash nine weeks earlier. Wondering what she can do that the Santa Rosa police haven't done already, Kinsey takes the case and quickly discovers that the nursing home Purcell administered is being investigated for Medicare fraud. Was Purcell involved or did the facility's owners have something to do with his disappearance? And what about his second wife, ex-stripper Crystal, who Fiona believes is having an affair with her personal trainer? At the same time, Kinsey's losing streak with men continues as she is pursued romantically by her new office landlord's brother. Unfortunately for Kinsey, her new Mr. Right and his sibling are suspects in the murder of their parents. As usual, Grafton mixes an intriguing plot, well-developed characters, and humor into an entertaining summer read.- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Kinsey Millhone encounters a double dose of danger while searching for new digs and uncovering the whereabouts of a missing doctor, possibly involved in welfare fraud. The story slugs along at first, until Kinsey hooks up with a deadly set of twins. Then, author Sue Grafton is back on her game. Judy Kaye so completely absorbs Kinsey's character that it becomes increasingly difficult to separate performance from persona. With her wisecracking observations, it's impossible to imagine anyone else as the streetwise sleuth. While Santa Theresa (AKA Santa Barbara) is Ross Macdonald territory, in her sixteenth Kinsey Millhone adventure, Grafton is no longer the new kid in town. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Kinsey Millhone, she of the "slightly dinged" '74 VW Bug, the portable Smith Corona, and the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches, is back, and she's landed in a mystery that's as good as two, moving from the laconic private-eye story at which Grafton excels to a bated-breath thriller. Millhone, short on cash, is ambivalent about taking on a missing-persons case involving a rich doctor who may have repeated history by running out on his new wife and infant son. The case becomes riveting to Millhone, however, when she learns that the good doctor is sought after by federal fraud busters on suspicion of medicare fraud. With this story chugging along on procedure, matters take a sick plunge when Millhone discovers that the brothers who are her new landlords (one of whom she's become romantically involved with) murdered their parents 10 years previously. Her effort to escape that relationship is overridden by her need, financial and psychological, to investigate what happened to the family jewels, at the urging of an insurance company. As always, Grafton gives us a truly complex heroine, marvelous depictions of Southern California architecture and interiors, and a writing style that can make a weed path interesting (for example, snails are seen as moving on the sidewalk "with the optimism of the innocent"). Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Sue Grafton continues her inexorable march through the alphabet with the 15th Kinsey Millhone mystery, P Is for Peril. Like its predecessors, Grafton's latest is both an elegant entertainment and a first-rate private-eye novel that honors and extends the tradition from which it springs.

The story begins when Kinsey, against her better judgment, accepts an assignment from crusty interior designer Fiona Purcell. Fiona's ex-husband, prominent Santa Theresa physician Dowan Purcell, has been missing for several weeks. Chief administrator for a nursing home called Pacific Meadows, Purcell left work at the usual time one Friday night and has not been heard from since. Local police have made little or no progress in tracing him, and Kinsey finds herself following in their footsteps, futilely attempting to make sense of an elusive, increasingly remote event.

Kinsey's investigation takes her beneath the placid surface of a respected doctor's life, revealing an unexpectedly problematic underside. The Dowan Purcell who gradually emerges is a secret drinker with a propensity for kinky sex. His second marriage -- to former stripper Crystal Muscoe -- has a carefully concealed dark side that manifests itself in the rebellious behavior of his troubled teenage stepdaughter, Leila. Purcell's professional life proves equally problematic: Pacific Meadows is currently being investigated for numerous counts of Medicare fraud. Picking her way slowly through this lethal combination of elements, Kinsey searches, with typical persistence, for the key to Dowan Purcell's disappearance.

Supplementing this central plot line is a secondary story that has perilous implications of its own. While conducting a search for affordable new office space, Kinsey stumbles across a rental opportunity that proves too good to be true, placing her in dangerously close proximity to a pair of fraternal landlords with undisclosed secrets of their own. Cutting effortlessly back and forth between these interconnected narratives, Grafton gives us yet another irresistible novel. Her bright, energetic prose, her precise eye for character and landscape, and her virtually flawless sense of pace come cleanly together once again, reaffirming Grafton's position as one of the most engaging, consistently reliable suspense novelists working in America today. (Bill Sheehan)

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Dr. Dowan Purcell had been missing for nine weeks when Kinsey got a call asking her to take on the case. A specialist in geriatric medicine, Purcell was a prominent member of the Santa Teresa medical community, and the police had done a thorough job. Purcell had no known enemies and seemed contented with his life. At the time of his disappearance, he was running a nursing care facility where both the staff and the patients loved him. He adored his second wife, Crystal, and doted on their two-year-old son." "It wasn't Crystal who called Kinsey. It was Purcell's ex-wife, Fiona. Everything about their meeting made Kinsey uneasy. Fiona's manner was high-handed and her expectations unrealistic. Kinsey's instincts told her to refuse the job, yet she ended up saying, "I'll do what I can, but I make no promises."" "It was a decision she'd live to regret." "Pursuing the mysterious disappearance of Purcell, Kinsey crashes into a wall of speculation. It seems everyone has a theory. The cops think he went on a bender and is too ashamed to come home. Fiona is sure he ran off to get away from Crystal, and Crystal is just as sure he's dead. The staff at the nursing home is convinced he's been kidnapped, and one of his daughters, having consulted a psychic, is certain that he's trapped in a dark place, though she doesn't know where. Kinsey is awash in explanations and sorely lacking in facts. Then pure chance leads her in another direction, and she soon finds herself in a dangerous shadow land, where duplicity and double-dealing are the reality and, with the truth glinting elusively out of reach, she must stake her life on a thin thread of intuition."--BOOK JACKET.

SYNOPSIS

Dr. Dowan Purcell had been missing for nine weeks when Kinsey got a call asking her to take on the case. A specialist in geriatric medicine, Purcell was a prominent member of the Santa Theresa medical community, and the police had done a thorough job. Purcell had no known enemies and seemed content with his life. At the time of his disappearance, he was running a nursing care facility where both the staff and the patients loved him. He adored his second wife, Crystal, and doted on their two-year-old son.

It wasn't Crystal who called Kinsey. It was Purcell's ex-wife, Fiona. Everything about their meeting made Kinsey uneasy. Fiona's manner was high-handed and her expectations unrealistic. Kinsey's instincts told her to refuse the job, yet she ended up saying, "I'll do what I can, but I make no promises."

It was a decision she'd live to regret.

Pursuing the mysterious disappearance of Purcell, Kinsey crashes into a wall of speculation. It seems everyone has a theory. The cops think he went on a bender and is too ashamed to come home. Fiona is sure he ran off to get away from Crystal, and Crystal is just as sure he's dead. The staff at the nursing home is convinced he's been kidnapped, and one of his daughters, having consulted a psychic, is certain that he's trapped in a dark place, though she doesn't know where. Kinsey is awash in explanations and sorely lacking in facts. Then pure chance leads her in another direction, and she soon finds herself in a dangerous shadow land, where duplicity and double-dealing are the reality and, with the truth glinting elusively out of reach, she must stake her life on a thin thread of intuition.

P Is for Peril: Kinsey Millhone's latest venture into the darker side of the human soul

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

In her 15th alphabetical mystery, Grafton deserves an A for maintaining her series's high standard of excellence. This time private investigator Kinsey Milhone is hired by Dr. Fiona Purcell to find her ex-husband, Dowan, a prominent physician who vanished with his passport and $30,000 in cash nine weeks earlier. Wondering what she can do that the Santa Rosa police haven't done already, Kinsey takes the case and quickly discovers that the nursing home Purcell administered is being investigated for Medicare fraud. Was Purcell involved or did the facility's owners have something to do with his disappearance? And what about his second wife, ex-stripper Crystal, who Fiona believes is having an affair with her personal trainer? At the same time, Kinsey's losing streak with men continues as she is pursued romantically by her new office landlord's brother. Unfortunately for Kinsey, her new Mr. Right and his sibling are suspects in the murder of their parents. As usual, Grafton mixes an intriguing plot, well-developed characters, and humor into an entertaining summer read. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/00; a Literary Guild main selection.] Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Kinsey Millhone encounters a double dose of danger while searching for new digs and uncovering the whereabouts of a missing doctor, possibly involved in welfare fraud. The story slugs along at first, until Kinsey hooks up with a deadly set of twins. Then, author Sue Grafton is back on her game. Judy Kaye so completely absorbs Kinsey's character that it becomes increasingly difficult to separate performance from persona. With her wisecracking observations, it's impossible to imagine anyone else as the streetwise sleuth. While Santa Theresa (AKA Santa Barbara) is Ross Macdonald territory, in her sixteenth Kinsey Millhone adventure, Grafton is no longer the new kid in town. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews