A tangled tale of friendship and betrayal

It must be something primal, but I really do enjoy reading almost anything when I’m snuggled in a warm blanket with the wind howling outside the house. As long as the power stays on, I’m good to go.

Scary story lines might not be the common choice for snuggle time books, but who could resist Sue Grafton’s kind of scary? “Y is for Yesterday” was a multi-level mystery.

It’s 1989, and Kinsey Milhoune is an established private investigator in Santa Teresa, California. She’s 39, single and comfortable in the tiny bungalow she rents from her neighbor, Henry. She’s a bit surprised to get a call from the mother of the recently paroled Fritz McCabe. The family has received an extortion threat, and they want to hire Kinsey.

As the story bounces back and forth between 1979 and 1989, we are introduced to the students at the elite Climp Academy. Most but not all come from wealthy families. Iris Lehman and Troy Rademaker were the exception, yet they managed to become part of clique that included Austin, Fritz, Steve, Bayard, Sloan, Poppy and Roland. What happened that fall started a deadly chain of events that would echo 10 years into the future.

Since Iris was an outcast, she was desperate to keep her friends Poppy and Troy in school. So she gave them stolen copies of an important test. The school got a tip about what she’d done, so Poppy, Troy and Iris were expelled. Soon Austin Brown said that Sloan Seays had been the “snitch,” but she was innocent.

Beneath the swagger, Austin was just a bully who loved finding out secrets and using them to manipulate people. When he got a video camera, he convinced his friends to help him make a porn tape using a very drunk and stoned Iris as the “star.” Bayard told Sloan about the tape and suggested she steal it to use as leverage over Austin. So she did.

Things go bad when she refuses to return it and Sloan is murdered. The tape was never found, Fritz was convicted of the murder and sent to juvenile care for 10 years. Troy was convicted of obstruction and served five years. Austin disappeared without a trace, and the others all picked up the pieces and went on with their lives.

Now Fritz is out, and a blackmailer is demanding $25,000 in exchange for the missing tape. If the police get it, Fritz will be charged with rape, so his parents are conflicted about handling the situation. They want Kinsey to sort things out and fast. She isn’t getting much cooperation.

Most of the clique members even use the same words in describing the tape as “a lark.” Kinsey is skeptical when she hears that Austin has suddenly been sighted. She can sense there is more to the story than any of the so-called friends are willing to share. All she needs is one thread, and she will be able to unravel the whole sordid mess.

Meanwhile, Kinsey has to be very careful. The serial killer who nearly killed her a year ago has returned, and he is determined to retrieve the souvenirs he took from previous victims. This psychopath is smart, devious and seems to blend in whenever he wants to disappear. Toss in a pair of homeless souls, a protective dog, a pregnant distant relative and several former lovers, and you have a real tangled tale.

I don’t know how Sue Grafton does it, but I hope she keeps it up for a long time.

AT A GLANCE
BOOK: “Y is for Yesterday”
AUTHOR: Sue Grafton
PUBLISHER: Marian Wood Books/Putnam
PUBLISHED: Aug. 22, 2017
PAGES: 494