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    S Is For Silence
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    S Is For Silence
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    S Is For Silence
    Audiobook12 hours

    S Is For Silence

    Written by Sue Grafton

    Narrated by Judy Kaye

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    S is for silence: the silence of the lost, the silence of the grave, the silence of oblivion.

    Thirty-four years ago, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. She was never seen again. In the small California town of Serena Station, tongues wagged. Some said she'd run off with a lover. Some said she was murdered by her husband. But for the not-quite-seven-year-old daughter Daisy that she left behind, her absence has never been explained or forgotten.

    Now, thirty-four years later, she wants the solace of closure.

    In S IS FOR SILENCE, Kinsey Millhone's nineteenth excursion into the world of suspense and misadventure, S is for surprises as Sue Grafton takes a whole new approach to telling the tale. And S is for superb: Kinsey and Grafton at their best.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 6, 2005
    ISBN9780739323106
    Unavailable
    S Is For Silence
    Author

    Sue Grafton

    Sue Grafton was one of the most popular female writers, both in the UK and in the US. Born in Kentucky in 1940, she began her career as a TV scriptwriter before Kinsey Millhone and the 'alphabet' series took off. Two of the novels B is for Burglar and C is for Corpse won the first Anthony Awards for Best Novel. Sue lived and wrote in Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky.

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    Reviews for S Is For Silence

    3.5/5

    726 ratings43 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Liza Mellincamp asks Kinsey Millhone to find her mother, Violet Sullivan, who left her abusive husband and seven year old Liza in 1953. With thirty years having past, Kinsey feels it will be very unlikely she will have much success. However, we follow her as she interviews the people who knew Violet, her friends and her lovers. When her tires are slashed, Kinsey knows she is frightening someone and decides to continue her search.To give the reader background on what happened in 1953, she lets us see through flashbacks what the characters saw and thought by describing incidents in that year. We are given several suspects to focus on with Liza's father being the prime one because of his past drinking and violent nature.As I read my way through the series, each Millhone gets better than the last one.
    • 4/5
      The best Grafton since the early novels. At last Kinsey realizes that if you're hunting a killer, you might want to pack your gun.
    • 4/5
      A woman named Violet goes missing in the '50s and is never found. Thirty years later Violet's daughter hires Kinsey to try to discover what happened. This was the first time Grafton used a rotating POV. We usually only see the case through Kinsey's eyes, but this time we flash back into the past and see the case from a few different characters. We still see it through Kinsey's eyes in the present day, but I liked getting inside the head of all the suspects and other players. Plus, Kinsey hits it off with the daughter and it's nice to see her gain another friend. Definitely a fun addition to the series.
    • 5/5
      Daisy Sullivan was 6 years old when her mother got dressed for a party one night and left never to return. Now she's over 40 and she just can't live without the answer to what happened any more. Kensey is on the case.
    • 5/5
      I think this was one of her best yet.
    • 3/5
      I read this once before, when I was reading the series in order, but apparently that was either before I had an online bookshelf or this book didn't transfer over when I moved from Shelfari.A friend from a networking group gave me this book in a box of books she wanted to distribute to good causes (she knows I tend to read them first) and it was the first one I took from the box to read.I did not remember the story/plot from when I read it previously; however, I feel like I read a book with a similar plot recently though I can't remember the title. Having such similar plots read close together probably made this book a little less enjoyable for me. We don't get to see many of the series regulars (Henry Pitts, Rosie, etc.) in this book. I think it's limited to Cheney Phillips (a few conversations on the phone) and maybe an interaction with Henry. I find I kind of enjoy the recurring characters and would have liked to see a bit more of them in this book. Kinsey's asked to find out what happened to Daisy's mother (who disappeared in the 1950s). This is set in a time before computers and cell phones, so Kinsey has to drive to places like the library or archives to look up information. The lack of cell phones becomes evident late in the story. I have to admire her doggedness in pursuing such an old case--and she manages to find out what really did happen, even so many years after the fact.
    • 3/5
      I both liked and didn’t like this story. I like the cold case aspect and I really liked watching how the disappearance of Violet affected each character over time. Sue Grafton did an excellent job of telling the past through the eyes of so many characters that it gave the reader a great deal of suspects who each had their own reasons for being glad Violet disappeared. What I didn’t like was that Violet was not a likable person and I found myself wondering why her daughter cared so much. Also this was a repeat of other cases where a small town warns Kinsey off the case and then someone does something to try to deter her. It seemed almost like I had read the story before. Kinsey also seems to be getting closer to the people involved in the case to point of it almost impairing her judgement on certain items.
    • 3/5
      BOTTOM-LINE:The story is okay, but the characters are depressing..PLOT OR PREMISE:It's a 35-year-old cold case of a missing mom, and the now 40-year-old daughter wants to know what happened to Violet..WHAT I LIKED:Daughter Daisy needs to know what happened so she can move forward in her messed-up life -- did Dad kill her? Did she run away? And why did she take the DOG but not her daughter? The people with info include the husband aka Daisy's Dad, a babysitter who saw her get ready to go out, a best friend, a brother, a car salesman, some men at the local bar, etc. The story bops back and forth from the past to the present, like most cold cases do. And the tension ramps up when Kinsey finds out that not everyone seems to like her looking for Violet...either that or they just don't like the tires on her car..WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:The characterizations of the kids and what they're thinking or feeling back in '53 seem "off", more like adults guessing how they feel or act, and the interactions come off really clumsy. And I don't think there is a single character that I actually like..DISCLOSURE:I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow her on social media.
    • 4/5
      This is my first Sue Grafton novel and I'm not disappointed. An easy read filled with several plot lines. A woman, known for her wild life-style, disappears with her fancy new car one night leaving a young daughter and husband. Kinsey Milhone is a private investigator who get involved in the case many years later. The car is finally found buried on a remote location....
    • 2/5
      One of the more interesting Millhone tomes. Grafton going back and forth between time felt new and interesting though the basic formula of her Alphabet Series books was still there (once it hits 90% you know something's going down). I thought the forward by Grafton was kind of weird and bitchy. I don't think there are many authors that complain about their fans taking enough interest in a series to actually write in. Even if you don't end up reading the more monotonous for the sake of sanity.

      Still, since the book was more interesting than the usual- I'm going with three stars. At least Millhone wasn't an idiot about needing a gun this time around. Although getting in your car and driving down a dark road when you know a killer is trying to mess with you (or at least probably is) when you could just stay in a house with an albeit drunk and dimwitted old lady until it's light out seems to smack plenty of the typical idiocy that imbues Millhone. Okay... I'm rethinking the three stars. However, I did end up being wrong on the whodunnit which is always a good thing when reading a mystery/suspense fic. I really wanted it to have been Kathy because that little psychopath got on my nerves to no end. It just ended up seeming predictable that it was one of the guys. Which is pretty sad if you think about it. That it would be predictable in fic and in reality that it would more than likely be one of the guys she was in a relationship with especially when you saw that her sleeping around and drinking were her only real defenses against how horrible she felt about herself and how dismal her options were. It might have been a defense but that doesn't mean there wasn't some trust lying around in those dalliances, some little notch of self worth blooming with the recognition of being wanted even if it didn't amount to being cared about.
    • 5/5
      back and forth from 1950 to 1980. different interviews. In the end it's crazy how one thing solved the whole crime.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this episode in the Kinsey Millhone series. I say this every review, but this is my favorite so far! I liked that the plot alternated between the past and the present. Each chapter from the past would give the perspective of one of the characters in the story. The mystery was explained through each characters' eyes. These chapters were alternated with Kinsey's detective work from the present. It was a really neat way to have the mystery unfold. This techniques doesn't always work (it can be too repetitive if not done right), but Sue Grafton got it perfect!
    • 4/5
      This I have to say was one of the better Kinsey books. I liked the mystery and found myself having a hard time trying to decide which of 3 suspects was really the killer. This was a cold case, someone hired Kinsey to find out what happened to her mom when she disappeared 30+ years previously. Turns out there were quite a few people who didn't really want anyone looking to hard at what happened back then, lots of secrets to keep hidden.And once again when Kinsey gets close to the killer, she almost bites it. I liked how this time it wasn't because she was being naive or too curious for her own good, she was just a little to slow for the masterful planning of the person with the biggest secret to hide.
    • 5/5
      As usual, author Sue Grafton kept me awake and reading until the very end of S is for Silence. Whatever gift she has, Ms Grafton is able to keep my interest throughout the book. I usually skip some paragraphs or chapters, but not with her series I will be so unhappy when she is through with these alphabet books. Silence is a new way for her to write, though, skipping back to earlier times and having the characters tell their version of the plot. I usually hate this way of writing, but again, Ms Grafton writes in such a style that it wasn't confusing, but enlightening. It was sort of me helping to play detective, knowing what these characters were thinking and doing. This approach to telling her tale leaves me hungering for the next Kinsey Millhone adventure.
    • 5/5
      As a long time follower of this 1980s time frame alphabet series, I was glad to have an excuse to pull out the next volume (for me) from my TBR. And Ms. Grafton did not fail me. In this one, PI Kinsey Millhone is asked to look into the disappearance of Violet Sullivan from her rural California town in 1953. The request is from Violet's now grown daughter, Daisy, and the tale encompasses Violet's wanton behavior and her abusive marriage. Kinsey begins the search by speaking to the people who remember Violet, her husband, the barkeeps at the local bar, the car salesman from the local lot, Daisy's babysitter to name a few. As always, Kinsey keeps her notes on cards which she shuffles through seeking that one little clue, a new piece of information.I started reading the series many years ago and spread them out as treats to be savored, hence I'm not up with the newest and latest. When I was a child I lived in California and though these books mostly take place in the 80s, I still get glimpses of the California that I remember. And this book, with its flow back and forth between the 80s and 1953 take me back to the California of my memories from 1956.
    • 4/5
      Fans of Sue Grafton will say that she never writes the same book twice and I agree with this but in S is Silence she definitely harkens back to a couple of her previous stories. The story immediately reminded me of Q is for Quarry and N is for Noose. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book. I did. But for the first time I felt she was recycling ideas.Kinsey is hired to find out what happened to Violet Sullivan 30-some years ago. She disappeared without a trace leaving a 7 year old daughter who, as an adult, needs to know what happened to her. All the major players are still in the area and it’s a matter of getting them all to talk. All the old feelings come bubbling to the surface as Kinsey investigates and she stirs up some secrets that some people don’t want stirred up. The thing that is quite different about this book is the technique Sue Grafton uses to write it. It flashes back and forth between the year of the murder and the present day. I think it works well for the story. I’ve read other authors who tried this and didn’t do it nearly as well. It’s an effective technique when done well and this is. While the story may be reminiscent of some earlier books, it’s still a very enjoyable read.
    • 2/5
      About all I can say it was better than Q and R but not as good as the early ones. I'm not sure why I keep reading these.
    • 2/5
      A couple of things come to mind. First off, the ending was weak. No real explanation of why the "bad guy" did what he/she did. The ending was fairly abrupt and pretty unsatisfying.

      I'm also not a fan of the jump back and forth of "Joe Smith, July 1953" to 'today' (though 'today' was never announced). Yes, it's some sort of plot device so you can learn what was going on with each of the characters at an important time in the story, but it rankled.

      Lastly - and most disappointing - was the voice of Kinsey Millhone on this audio book. I'd read fictional characters discussing how Kinsey was gay (don't recall where) and thought pshaw. This audio book's voice more than suppported the fictional discussion with an unflattering stereotypical tone. And it was at times literally painful when the voice tried to "do" other characters.

      Yes, disappointed. No more Kinsey on audio.
    • 3/5
      I was extremely disappointed in the end of this book. In fact, it was so very out of keeping with the rest of Grafton's work that the next time I'm in a brick-and-mortar store, I intend to pick up a print copy and check to see if the ebook I read didn't leave out something important. There was no explanation as to how the murder was accomplished, or why. The reader was given no satisfaction at all. I started reading "T" is for Trespass, but if this book is typical of what Grafton is turning in now, it will be the last time I read anything of hers.
    • 2/5
      This series entry seems to be endless, with much more detail and repetition than is necessary or effective. There were more than enough red herrings and unappealing characters to go around, but I just wanted the author to get on with it and finish up already!
    • 4/5
      At last! Grafton returns to writing a book that holds the reader!In this case, she had to figure out a way to keep the reader in the loop of what it was like in small town California in the 1950s (when investing in television seemed like a waste of money). I doubt that it will work a second time, but it was interesting this time around.The ending was a bit hard to quite believe, but after such a fun book, I was willing to suspend my normal skepticism.
    • 4/5
      Kinsey Milhone is asked to look into the disappearance of a woman 34 years ago by her daughter who was 7 at the time. In an unusual twist for these books, it is not all told from Kinsey's perspective, but includes flashbacks. A compelling read, as always, with a mildly disappointing ending.
    • 4/5
      First Line: When Liza Mellincamp thinks about the last time she ever saw Violet Sullivan, what comes most vividly to mind is the color of Violet's Japanese silk kimono, a shade of blue that Liza later learned was called "cerulean," a word that wasn't even in her vocabulary when she was fourteen years old.On Saturday, July 4, 1953, most people in Serena Station, California, planned to spend at least part of their evening watching the fireworks display. Violet Sullivan was not one of them. She made arrangements for her usual babysitter, got dressed up, loaded her three-month-old Pomeranian puppy into her purse, and drove off in a cloud of dust in her brand-new Bel Air. She never came back.Although they did search for her, most people assumed that the vivacious Violet had run off with the latest man who'd caught her fancy. Trouble is, she left a young daughter behind who grew up with a lot of problems due to her mother's disappearance. Reluctantly, Kinsey Millhone agrees to work for Daisy, even though she privately thinks she's not going to get anywhere with the 34-year-old cold case.Of course we know that once Kinsey starts investigating, she's going to get somewhere. Grafton veers away from Kinsey's usual first person narrative to intersperse flashbacks from the various people in town who knew the missing woman. As the story progresses, the reader begins to understand that all these people have their own reasons for wanting Violet dead.Hopefully I won't be tarred and feathered by the legions of Millhone fans when I say that previously the only book in the series I'd read was A is for Alibi. For some reason that I can't remember, Kinsey and I didn't really hit it off, but I'm happy to say that I appreciate her a lot more now that I've read S is for Silence. Did I feel as though I was missing a lot of detail, not having read B through R? No. I fell right in step with her as she began digging away at the facts in this case.The flashbacks populated the town for me and gave me a real sense of the way Violet interacted with everyone. Without those glimpses into 1953, the story would have been skeletal indeed. As it was, I became quite caught up in the book and its characters. I was able to narrow down the field of those who wished Violet ill, but never got around to choosing my chief suspect.Many times in reading crime fiction, it's not just about whodunit. Sometimes the how and the why are even more important, and once in a while the characters make a reader forget everything else. Where S is for Silence is concerned, the who led to the how and then to the why, and then I just concentrated on a private investigator who doesn't know how to quit... and the daughter, abandoned so long ago, who deserved truth and justice.
    • 3/5
      The lifeblood of any small company is the new business brought in by referrals from friends and former customers. Kinsey Millhone runs a one-woman detective agency and, although she is doing well enough with it, she is always hesitant to reject any potential clients that come her way. Still, after a friend asks her to meet with Daisy, a young woman whose mother disappeared 34 years earlier (in 1953), Kinsey only reluctantly agrees to take on a case gone so cold that it is unlikely ever to be solved. That Violet Sullivan was Serena Station's town slut is no secret. The stunningly beautiful redhead may have been married, with a seven-year-old daughter, but she still moved steadily from one affair to the next despite the grief it caused her husband. Men found Violet hard to resist; their wives despised her. And then one evening, she blew her daughter a kiss, waved goodbye to the babysitter, and disappeared in the flashiest car in Serena Station, a brand new 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air. She would never be seen again. Kinsey does not expect her investigation to get far but, when one morning she finds all four tires on her VW Beetle slashed, she knows that she is making someone very nervous. Violet's disappearance is complicated by the rumor that she left town with $50,000 in cash, and the fact that every man Kinsey interviews seems to have had a reason to want her dead. Kinsey will find that having an abundance of suspects is not a good thing. "S Is for Silence" focuses almost entirely on the cold case Kinsey Millhone has been hired to investigate, even to the point that the book's lack of attention to Kinsey's personal life might disappoint some longtime fans of the series. Grafton alternates chapters flashing back to 1953 with chapters showing Kinsey stirring up things with the same characters in present day 1987, giving readers the opportunity to observe both eras in real time (in typical "cold case" fashion). Despite being atypical of Grafton's alphabet series, "S Is for Silence" is cleverly constructed up to the moment its disappointingly farfetched ending is exposed. The book's climactic scene is so dependent on coincidence that much of its tension is lost because the reader is unlikely to be able to take the scene completely seriously. This, added to the way that so many of the investigation's turning points are entirely dependent on Kinsey's sudden intuition, and not on what she actually discovers about Violet's disappearance, results in a less than satisfying mystery. As usual, reader Judy Kaye does a magnificent job in presenting the words of Sue Grafton in the audio version of the book. Hers is the perfect Kinsey Millhone voice. Rated at: 3.0
    • 5/5
      Kinsey Millhone investigates the 30-yr-old disappearance of a young woman
    • 4/5
      #19 in the alphabet mysteries or case files of Kinsey Millhorne. No back history as in the past couple books, but very well done. grafton applies a new technique here, taking a chapter and flashing back 30-40 years in time to reveal part of what went on in each of the characters/suspects lives. Very well done, and added a lot of depth and insight into the story.Ms. Grafton demonstrates her usual incredibly creative crime talent here, the main key piece of evidence being a 1956 Bel Air, that ended up buried on the property of a old manor type house that someone is restoring. And her expert character weaving is present as well, taking a small town from the 50's and typing a large group of lives together in this inter-related case of a missing woman.
    • 4/5
      One of the better Kinsey Millhone stories. I appreciated the actual mystery in this book. Often times I get frustrated with this series because it seems that every other page is Kinsey pulling on her sweats for a 3 mile run, and dinner at Rosie's. This had some actual detective work.
    • 3/5
      Sue Grafton chugs relentlessly toward the end of the alphabet. S turned out to be a perfectly serviceable entry in the series, which I experience a little differently than I do other series. For instance, I have devoured repeatedly all of the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, and the characters are so vividly drawn that I like to think of them as living outside of the books. Kinsey Millhone, on the other hand, seems like a very cool chick, and someone that I think I would enjoy hanging out with. But the connection isn't as intense; I don't seek out the latest Grafton as soon as it's published, but I'll make a point of eventually catching up at the library.Anyway, the series went through kind of a "dark" period somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, when we learned a whole bunch about Kinsey's childhood and past history. The last few, though, have reverted back to a lighter feel, and S in particular has virtually no detours into Kinsey's personal life at all. It's not bad, necessarily (though I sorely missed visiting with her octogenarian landlord Henry).Overall, I'd say if you've read and enjoyed the previous vowels and consonants in the series, you'll probably enjoy this one as well. I don't think this one will inspire many newcomers to start all over back at A, though.
    • 2/5
      I enjoyed this audiobook. Having started the series with A and jumping to S I found the author much more adept at her craft. Her characters were much more well-developed. Each of them had a reason for being in the story, and helped to create a backdrop for the mystery of a long-ago murder in a small town. When a young woman asks Kinsey Milhone to look into the murder of her mother, a notorious town flirt, Kinsey uncovers much more than she bargained for. There are always more secrets contributing to events than there appears to be at first look. Every person Kinsey talks with, gives her another piece of the puzzle, and it is up to her to put them all together. Of course, as with any good mystery, the closer she gets, the closer the danger gets to her. If you think you'd like a mystery with a town full of suspects, get the book or listen to the audiobook. I will be looking forward to another Kinsey Milhone mystery.
    • 3/5
      Missing Person. Kinsey gets dragged somewhat reluctantly into her oldest case yet. She is asked to trace a daughters mother who went missing in the dead of night 34 yrs ago. Although many people have moved away, small town america retains its memories of past events and people confide secrets held for manay years when Kinsey questions them. Someone appears to have yet more secrets hidden, can Kinsey unearth the truth after all these years?No random Subplots! On the downside the story is written with interleaving chapters from the past, telling the story from other characters points of view at the time. This reveals details that Kinsey never uncovers, makes the story very dissjointed and is over all just odd.