R Is for Ricochet — Kinsey Millhone #18

Minding Reba

R Is for Ricochet, the eighteenth Kinsey Millhone novel, is one of the more character-driven entries in the series, trading the usual murder mystery for a vivid study of a relationship. Wealthy, ailing Nord Lafferty hires Kinsey for a seemingly simple job: collect his wayward daughter Reba from prison, where she has served time for embezzlement, and ease her back into respectable life. But Reba proves anything but easy. She is wild, charismatic, fiercely loyal to the wrong people, and entangled with Alan Beckwith, a married money launderer who is bad news in every direction. Kinsey, hired to mind Reba, finds herself caught between her duty to her client and her growing affection for the volatile woman she is supposed to be steadying.

The relationship between Kinsey and Reba is the book’s center and its great strength. Reba is a vivid, volatile creation — magnetic, self-destructive, loyal to a fault, impossible to control — and the dynamic between her and Kinsey gives the novel its energy. Kinsey comes to like Reba even as she despairs of her choices, and the friendship that develops between them, complicated by Kinsey’s professional role and Reba’s reckless loyalties, is the kind of rich, character-driven relationship the series excels at. Watching Kinsey try to mind a woman who refuses to be minded is the book’s central pleasure.

A Character Study

R Is for Ricochet is more character study than conventional whodunit, and that is its defining quality. There is no central murder to solve, no methodical reconstruction of a crime; instead the novel follows Kinsey and Reba as Reba’s loyalties and schemes pull them both into the orbit of money laundering and federal investigation. The crime element — the financial wrongdoing surrounding Beckwith, the federal interest in Reba’s connections — provides intrigue and stakes, but the book is fundamentally about Reba herself, her character and her choices, and about Kinsey’s relationship with her.

This character-driven approach makes R Is for Ricochet lighter on the central mystery than the series’ more puzzle-focused entries. Readers who come to the series for its murder mysteries and methodical detection may find the absence of a clear whodunit a departure; readers who value character and relationship will find the vivid portrait of Reba and her friendship with Kinsey rewarding. The book trades the satisfactions of a puzzle for the satisfactions of character, and on those terms it succeeds, anchored by one of the series’ most memorable supporting figures.

Loyalty and Its Costs

The novel’s thematic concern is loyalty — Reba’s fierce, misguided loyalty to people who do not deserve it, and the difficulty of breaking such bonds even when they lead to ruin. Reba’s loyalty to Beckwith, to the wrong people from her past, drives her self-destruction, and Kinsey’s attempts to steer her away from it form the emotional spine of the book. The theme gives R Is for Ricochet a depth beyond its financial-crime intrigue, exploring the way loyalty can be both admirable and destructive, and the limits of one person’s ability to save another from herself.

The financial-crime element provides engaging intrigue to balance the character study. The money laundering, the federal investigation, the schemes Reba is drawn into give the novel stakes and momentum, and Kinsey’s involvement in the criminal machinations provides the plot. But the crime serves the character rather than the reverse, the intrigue a vehicle for exploring Reba and her relationship with Kinsey. Grafton’s clean prose and Kinsey’s dry narration carry the character-driven material, and the vivid relationship gives the book its lasting impression.

A Relationship-Driven Entry

R Is for Ricochet is one of the more relationship-driven Kinsey Millhone novels, and its strength is the vivid, volatile friendship between Kinsey and Reba. The character study at its center gives the book an energy and an emotional richness distinct from the series’ puzzle-focused entries, and the financial-crime intrigue provides engaging stakes. It is lighter on the central mystery than most, more character study than whodunit, but the memorable portrait of Reba makes it a rewarding entry.

The 1980s setting remains a defining texture, dating the book while keeping the focus on the relationship at its heart. R Is for Ricochet is the series in a character-driven mode, anchored by a charismatic, self-destructive ex-convict and her complicated friendship with Kinsey, one of the more relationship-focused entries in the Alphabet.

Where It Sits in the Series

R Is for Ricochet is the eighteenth Kinsey Millhone novel, following Q Is for Quarry and preceding S Is for Silence. It reads well in sequence, though it works as a standalone. For readers tracking the Alphabet series, it is one of the more character-driven entries, notable for its vivid central relationship.

Among the Kinsey Millhone books, R Is for Ricochet stands out for its memorable portrait of Reba Lafferty and its character-driven approach, one of the more relationship-focused entries in the series. It is a vivid character study anchored by a volatile friendship, lighter on the central mystery but rich in character, demonstrating the series’ strength at creating compelling people even when the crime takes a back seat.

The decision to build a Kinsey Millhone novel around a relationship rather than a murder is a quietly telling one, and it speaks to the confidence of a long-running series. Eighteen books in, Grafton trusted that readers came to the Alphabet as much for Kinsey herself — her voice, her judgment, her way of moving through the world — as for the puzzles she solved, and R Is for Ricochet tests that trust by letting a character study carry the book. The gamble largely succeeds because Reba is so vividly drawn and because her friendship with Kinsey reveals new facets of the detective: her capacity for affection, her frustration with people she cannot save, the limits of her professional detachment. The crime intrigue keeps the plot moving, but the lasting impression is of two women, very different, briefly and combustibly bound together, and that human focus is its own kind of reward.

Our rating: 3.8/5 — A character-driven Kinsey Millhone novel that shepherds a charismatic, self-destructive ex-convict back into the world, anchored by the vivid, volatile friendship between Kinsey and Reba Lafferty.