Seventeen years ago, the body of teenaged Jean Timberlake had been found near the ocean in Floral Beach, California. Her ex-boyfriend Bailey Fowler had been arrested and pleaded guilty for voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to serve his time at San Luis Obispo, but within a year, he had walked away from his work detail and disappeared. His family hadn’t heard from him until a few weeks ago, when he got arrested by accident. The name he’d been using all those years to live an honest life had a warrant, but they cleared Bailey of that quickly. However, when they ran his fingerprints through the system, the police figured out who he really was.

That’s when Royce Fowler decided to turn for help to private investigator Kinsey Millhone.

Royce had an appointment at a nearby medical clinic, so he had his daughter Ann take him to Kinsey’s office. Bailey was going to get sentenced all over again, but he claims that he’s innocent of Jean’s murder. He was a confused kid when he took the plea deal. Now Royce wants Kinsey to find Jean’s actual killer to try to keep Bailey out of prison again. Royce and his wife own the Ocean Street Motel in Floral Beach, so they invite Kinsey to stay there while she investigates the crime.

Kinsey agrees and heads out to start asking questions. Seventeen years is a long time, but the crime had been memorable, so Kinsey finds several people who remember Jean. The high school principal, the local Baptist preacher, the pharmacist, the mechanic. Jean was known for her sensuality, and when she died, she was pregnant. But as Kinsey makes the rounds, asking questions and trying to get some answers, no one will stand up and say that they were the father. But when Kinsey comes back to her motel room one night to realize that someone had broken in, she knows that she is on the right track. She just has to make to the end of the road before someone tries to end her investigating, permanently.

F Is for Fugitive is a novel about paying for past mistakes and trying to make peace with the life you’re given. As Bailey tries to run from his past, Kinsey has to figure out whose debt it is that’s hanging over his head and try to even out the balance sheet. No one can bring a dead girl back to life, but Kinsey can help justice along by finding the missing puzzle piece. And while Sue Grafton’s favorite prickly private investigator reveals the truth about one family’s heartache, she also faces some truths about her own need for connection. With this story, Kinsey sees herself in a new light and finds herself more open to those in her life who just want to love her.

As always, I love Kinsey and her stories. There were some aspects to this story that were painful. Royce and his wife were both dealing with illnesses, and their daughter Ann was caught in the middle, trying to care for them and keep the motel running while putting her own life on hold. The sacrifices that the family made for Bailey were more significant than what they did for Ann, which may be partly sexism that doesn’t translate so well in this decade. Or it may just be that Ann showed herself to be the dependable one, so they depended on her. Tragedy is hard on families, and F Is for Fugitive puts that on display.

I listened to F Is for Fugitive on audio, with the voice of Mary Peiffer in my ears. As I listen to more of these books, she becomes the inimitable voice of Kinsey, so listening to her feels like wrapping myself up in a warm blanket and settling in for a cozy time on the sofa. While all these books can be read as stand-alones, I do think that it’s good to read the series from A to Y. Throughout the series, Kinsey grows and changes as a person, and I think F is pivotal in her journey. It feels like she’s turned a corner with this one, and I look forward to re-reading the next books to see how much of a change these events create in her life.