B is for Burgler

スー・グラフトンの探偵小説、「泥棒のB」を読みました。
先日映画「オデッセイ」の原作本に続いて、２週間で２冊も読み切るなんて、私にとっては速読並の早さです。
日本語訳版を読んだのはどのくらい前？１５年ぐらい？なんか久しぶりに読みたくなったのよ。
ちなみにこのシリーズはアルファベットシリーズと呼ばれていて、タイトルがアルファベットの順で、Aから去年Xまで出ました。日本では早川さんが翻訳版を出してたけど、Rで終わってるらしい？
舞台が１９８０年代なので、携帯電話もインターネットもない時代の探偵小説は、今の時代からするとじれったいけど、それもある意味新鮮だったりします。
年末にAを読んで、４月にB。この調子でいくとシリーズがZで完結するころにちょうどよくとどくかな。

Finished reading Sue Grafton's alphabet series, B is for Burglar.
The series starts from A is for Alibi, and goes on along the alphabet; she has published until X, I think. It is a detective novel of a female private investigator, Kinsey Millhone.

I actually read A through K or so when I was still in Japan (the Japanese translated version, of course). My mother and I both really liked detective stories with female protagonist and we shared this Kinsey series, Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series, and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series.

The Kinsey series is set in the 1980s (well, the earlier books were in fact written in the 80s). It is slightly frustrating to read a detective trying to solve a crime when she does not have a cell phone or an Internet, but it also feels good old days, too. Many characters are constantly smoking and everybody has ash trays; the speed of communication is tantalizingly slow without e-mail or cell phone.