T is for Trespass

Sue Grafton

4/30/2008

Gus Vronsky is the cranky old man in the neighborhood. But when Kinsey Millhone and her landlord Henry find 89-year-old Gus fallen in his living room, Kinsey takes on neighborly duties. She and Henry take Gus to the hospital. She contacts his niece Elaine in New York, a continent away from them on the California coast.When Gus comes home, he needs a caretaker. Solana Rojas applies for the position and is hired immediately because Elaine needs to return to her job.

Elaine hires Kinsey to do a cursory background on Solana. Solana Rojas checks out very well. It's too bad that "Solana Rojas" watching over Gus isn't really Solana. She had stolen the "other" Solana's identity before applying for the job. She is alone with Gus and is able to carefully manipulate him, making him worse rather than better.

Kinsey is also hired to find the missing witness from an automobile accident nine months earlier. The defendant is being sued for $1 million. She was cited for turning in front of an oncoming car. The woman plaintiff was badly injured, claiming she can't work, concentrate, or doing anything without being in constant pain. The defendant is sure she had room to turn and insists the insurance company take the case to court rather than settling for payment out of court. An older man had first appeared when the accident occurred, then disappeared. Kinsey needs to find him to learn what really happened in the accident.

We tend to think that identity theft is a crime of the Internet, but it was around long before everyone put their lives online. T is for Trespass takes place in early 1988 and shows how easy it was/is for a determined person to take on someone else's persona. Kinsey's frustration is real when she knows something is wrong at Gus' home but can't prove what is happening. "Solana" is an interesting sociopath (we never think of a sociopath able to be nice or kind, which is "Solana" stock in trade). She's eerily cunning.

For once the novel isn't told solely from Kinsey's viewpoint. At times chapters are given over to "Solana" so the reader knows what is going on at Gus' long before Kinsey does. Sue Grafton is able to meld the two narrative styles effectively, pitting one character against the other. The final showdown between the two women is more chilling because the reader knows how "Solana" thinks.

There are numerous themes that wind throughout T is for Trespass. There is the obvious elder abuse and identity theft. There is also fraud, rent scams, pedophilia, missing people, crooked lawyers, and the inflation of the 1980's (a new landlord takes over a lower class apartment building and raises the rent $200 per month). Some of the threads are neatly tied up, some more realistically. I never learned what happened to the lawyer, though. I would have liked to hear that he went to jail for fraud...

You can find more about this book at .

A is for Alibi
B is for Burglar
C is for Corpse
D is for Deadbeat
E is for Evidence
F is for Fugitive
G is for Gumshoe
H is for Homicide
I is for Innocent
J is for Judgement
K is for Killer
L is for Lawless
M is for Malice
N is for Noose
O is for Outlaw
P is for Peril
Q is for Quarry
R is for Ricochet
S is for Silence
T is for Trespass