Latest detective tales stick to proven formulae

The quality of long-running series tends to bob up and down and so it is with the detective tales by American novelists Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton.

Each is hooked to a central character: bounty hunter Stephanie Plum for Evanovich and private eye Kinsey Millhone in Grafton's "alphabet" stories, which started in 1982 with A is for Alibi.

Incidentally, only 7500 of that book were printed initially, so if you have a hard-cover first edition, hang on to it, as the going price collectors will pay is in the region of $12,500.

In Explosive Eighteen, Stephanie Plum continues chasing bond defaulters who don't want to be caught, aided - and frequently hindered - by colleague and former prostitute Lulu, while lusting after two men, Morelli and Ranger. This time, Plum has accidentally acquired a photo that turns out to be a hot property.

Light as a feather and completely escapist, this novel gives no feeling of time moving on, despite the teeniest hint of character development at the end, as Plum contemplates the need to choose between the two men in her life.

Kinsey Millhone doesn't move on much, either, but V is for Vengeance is a much better effort than the Evanovich book and stronger than some of Grafton's earlier efforts in the alphabet series, which rather sagged around the M and N (for malice and for noose) books. This time, she works with three separate strands - Millhone reporting a shoplifter she has seen, a wealthy suburbanite whose second marriage is in its death throes, and an organised crime boss who wants out of the "industry". Grafton skilfully pulls these together to produce a solid story.

V is for Vengeance is the 22nd in the series, so there are just four to go. By 2016, at one a year, Grafton will be in her mid-70s and probably glad to retire, along with Millhone. Evanovich will be 73, so perhaps they could have a dual retirement bash.

 - Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer.