From Product Description:

From Amazon.com Review:

Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton: Author One-on-One
In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together blockbuster authors Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton and asked them to interview each other.

Robert B. Parker’s wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser has earned him a devoted following and wide critical acclaim. Parker also writes the bestselling Jesse Stone novels and has started a new series of Westerns featuring two guns-for-hire, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Read on to see Robert B. Parker's questions for Sue Grafton, or turn the tables to see what Grafton asked Parker.

Parker: Tell me about you and Kinsey Millhone and the connection between you.

Grafton: Kinsey Millhone is my alter ego, the woman I might have been had I not married young and had children. She's younger, thinner, and braver than I, but a good companion nonetheless. Since she can know only what I know, I've taken classes in criminal law and self-defense. I've studied police procedure, private eye procedure, toxicology, ballistics, and crime scene investigation. Beyond that, the prime agreement between us is that I don't tell her, she tells me. When readers ask what she’ll be doing after Z is for Zero, I assure them I haven't the faintest idea.

Parker: Describe your writing process (e.g., I get up in the morning, have a martini to get my heart going…).

Grafton: I take a 5.4-mile walk five days a week, so my writing schedule is often dictated by the weather. If it's too hot or too cold, I walk first thing in the morning, come home, shower, dress, and reach my desk at 9:45 or so. I work until lunch, when I take a short break, returning to my desk until mid-to-late afternoon. If I haven't done a morning walk, I walk when my work is done. Then I drink.

Parker: You've spent time in Hollywood. Tell me about that.

Grafton: I refer to that period of my life as "doing one to fifteen in Hollywood." I loved it at first, as dazzled as anyone who hasn't figured out yet how treacherous life there can be. As I've said on previous occasions, I learned two things about myself in Hollywood: one, I'm not a team player; and two, I'm not a good sport. The producers I met were well-educated and articulate, and usually offered me a cup of coffee before they set in to savaging my work. I got too old and cranky to put up with that, so I invented Kinsey Millhone as my way out. I liken it to digging my way out of prison with a teaspoon.

Parker: Do you read reviews? Pay attention to them? Find them helpful? Have an opinion on them?

Grafton: Where possible, I avoid reviews. The good ones only encourage swell-headedness and the bad ones hurt my feelings or infuriate me. In either case, by the time reviews appear, the book is written and out on the stands. What's a poor girl to do? There's no point in subjecting myself to the reactions of readers and reviewers, since their response is nothing I can control.

Parker: People sometimes ask me why I write what I write, and I answer, "Because that's what I know how to do." (Then they say, "Would you please stop?" but I'm sure they're just kidding.) Talk about why you write what you write.

Grafton: I write what I write because when I put in my application for a position at Sears, they never got back to me. I'm still hopeful, especially with the Christmas season coming up. Aside from that, I write what I write because when the work is going well, it makes me happier than just about anything except my kids and grandkids. When the work is not going well . . . which is maybe thirty-five percent of the time . . . I know it's my job to sit patiently and keep at it until I figure out what's wrong. In large part, writing is the only thing I know how to do.

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#21 in the Kinsey Millhone "alphabet" mysteries. Kinsey is approached by a young man who thinks he may have seen something related to a twenty-year-old kidnapping case. He went to the police and Kinsey's detective buddy referred him to her. Michael Sutton was only six when he saw two guys who he thought were dressed as pirates burying something in the backyard of the neighbor to a friend his mother had sent him to visit. He's sure this was around the same time a six year old girl was kidnapped, and reading about it in the local paper triggered the memory. <br /> <br />Kinsey investigates, and the case intrigues her--much of what Sutton reports checks out and is plausible, until they find the spot and a dead dog's body is discovered there, not a little girl's. Case closed. Or is it? Things continue to niggle in Kinsey's mind and she keeps checking things out, only to discover that Sutton may not be a reliable witness at all, given his history. She feels taken in but still can't help believe the core of his story and won't put it totally aside just yet. <br /> <br />Kinsey also has to deal with some personal issues relating to her family--the family she didn't even know she had until a few years previously, most notably her grandmother whom she'd always believed was indifferent to her and now finds out this may not be the case. <br /> <br />This is one of the few 'bestseller' type series I'm into, and that I've stayed caught up with. Some are better than others, but Kinsey has remained one of my favorite fictional characters of all time over the years, stuck as she is in the 1980's before things were made easy for private eyes by computers, electronic records and instant communication. Kinsey has to do things the hard way. <br /> <br />I liked this entry in the series a lot, with an intriguing story with a couple of interesting twists, although the story was fairly plainly spelled out as it was told from the point of view of several of the players in the drama. Enjoyable!

Talk about using detail for filler! One particular passage was a perfect example of uneven detail. I listened to the book on CD, so I can't use the exact verbiage. Kinsey waits in her car for Walker to go into his bank. She puts her coffee down on the floor of the passenger side of the car, then goes in after Walker. When she gets back to her car, she drives off and turns a corner and....hey wait, shouldn't the coffee have spilled all over the floor? If you're going to tell me what she did with her coffee before she left the car, shouldn't you have mention it a few minutes later when she returns to the car? <br /> <br />I applaud the author for making her last two novels more sophisticated in the telling. And even for for using a little more adult content (didn't do anything for me, but it was a change). I have read most if not all over Grafton's books. I always found the books to be character-driven, the plots were always pretty thin. I was pleased with T is for Trespass. This one, however, seemed to have been written (or edited) in spurts with little attention given to the book's overall flow.

I've been a Kinsey Millhone fan for a long time, though I missed the middle books when I was out of the country for a few years. That made me even more excited to order U is for Undertow for my new Kindle, which I did back when it was $9.99. What a disappointment! The plot is thin, with lots of holes, characters are weak, and even Kinsey seems tired. There are no real new developments in her life or career. For the new $14.99 Kindle price, I say skip it - you're not missing anything essential.

"She got caught in the undertow. She must have used up all her strength trying to fight her way back." It is from this description of a minor character's demise that author Sue Grafton titles her twenty-first book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries. This quote also describes the power of the underlying fear and guilt that unexpectedly surfaces for the story's villains from a crime they had expertly covered up as teenagers over twenty years before. <br /> <br />Truth has a way of finding you out, especially if it has partnered with a gutsy, independent Private Investigator named Kinsey Millhone. In her twenty-first adventure since A is for Alibi, Kinsey finds herself with a story that has many threads and not enough material to quickly recognize a pattern. U is for Undertow switches back and forth from the days of the kidnapping of little Mary Clair Fitzhugh in 1967 to Kinsey's current day setting in 1988 when a man walks into her office believing he can lead her to where the little girl's body was buried. (Though Grafton has taken nearly three decades to write these twenty-one mystery novels, her character has only aged six years and is still living in the '80s. It is intriguing to watch Kinsey do research without the modern conveniences of Google and cell phones.) <br /> <br />The chapters from Kinsey's perspective are written in the first person, giving the reader access to the P.I.'s thought processes, judgments and feelings. The chapters written about other characters, or in the earlier setting, are written in third person, giving the reader a chance to see the big picture of what Kinsey is trying to piece together. As such, while Kinsey is wrestling with the "who" question, the reader, already knowing the perpetrators, is bent on figuring out the "why." It is a very clever way to write the book and Grafton pulls it off with flair. <br /> <br />Central to every story line is the issue of family brokenness. Kinsey wants to dodge hers, but circumstances continually draw her back to her pain. When dealing with her client's estranged family she is forced to come to terms with the duplicity of her feelings toward her own relatives. She has important choices to make along the way that will either help bring reconciliation, or harden her heart further. Other characters in the story use their family brokenness as an excuse for reckless and selfish behavior. And as the story shows, once swimming in those tumultuous waters it is very hard to make it back to shore. <br /> <br />Sensitive readers should note that although there are no descriptions of graphic violence there are a couple of raw sections and sentences which include adult themes and situations. Also, in the closure of this mystery while all the loose ends are accounted for, and justice is served, redemption is a value that is noticeably lacking. <br /> <br />Although there are some subplots about Kinsey and her family that will carry more meaning for those who have followed along since the beginning of the series, U is for Undertow easily stands alone for readers who love a good mystery and want to jump right into the middle of the alphabet. <br /> <br />*** <br /> <br />This article first appeared on TheFish(dot)com, on January 5, 2010

Enjoyable book with one horribly written character. You can't really go wrong with a Grafton if you're a fan. She's better than most in the genre but I wish she could jump to Z then create a new, older character. Her age is showing in her portrayal of youth. The 'hippie chic' caricature in U is absurd and Kinsey is too jaded for her age. Kinsey's vocabulary has always been off but I attributed that to her upbringing. It's gotten worse, though. Also, the thoughts of younger members of this cast do not ring true. And I'm having a hard time buying the still sexy landlord with great legs at this point. <br /> <br />Grafton managed to sneak in one mention of her underpants. I hope it's the last. <br /> <br />It was a fun read but far from her best. I felt a lot of bitterness coming through in U.