Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "U" is for Undertow

"U" is for Undertow is novelist Sue Grafton's 21st book (out of presumably 26) in her "alphabet mystery" series, set in the late 1980s in southern California and featuring Kinsey Millhone, a private eye in her late thirties.  I enjoyed the previous "T" book and was looking forward to reading this one.  I wasn't disappointed.  Grafton seems to be fully back into her writing, and this story of a little girl's disappearance back in 1967 from a fenced-in back yard of an upscale neighborhood...and how Kinsey solves it...provides the necessary elements in terms of character development and suspense as to what happened.  This story, unlike many of the others, has Kinsey pretty much staying in her hometown of Santa Teresa; the fact that she recognizes some of the players in her investigation from her old high school years is important.  Along with the mystery of the missing girl, Kinsey uncovers some old mysteries from her childhood past...and discovers a new perspective on her estranged, domineering grandmother...

In "U" is for Undertow, as well as in many of her other books in this series, Sue Grafton seems to take great pleasure in exposing the decadence and feeling of privilege of many people living affluent lifestyles...many if not most of them enjoying the fruits of other people's ideas and labor.  In the hoity-toity Horton Ravine subdivision, where the story is focused, alcoholism, negligence, drug peddling and abuse, and burglary among its residents are presented as almost normal aspects of life...while they take great pains to make themselves look better than everyone else.  I like that about Grafton and have felt, from my childhood school days around snobbish, self-important classmates with rich parents, that many in the "upper" classes are nothing better than leeches on the hard work of others...