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by: Sue Grafton
Amazon.com's Price: $7.99 Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780449223611
ISBN: 0449223612
Label: Fawcett
Manufacturer: Fawcett
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: March 29, 1999
Publisher: Fawcett
Release Date: March 29, 1999
Sales Rank: 173457
Studio: Fawcett
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townfolk were sad but not surprised. Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, drank too much, and exercised too little.
Newquist's widow, Selma, didn't doubt the coroner's report. But still, she couldn't help wondering what had so bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night and brood constantly? Determined to help Selma find the answer, Kinsey Millhone sets up shop in Nota Lake, where she finds that looking for a needle in a haystack can draw blood--very likely, her own. . . .
Amazon.com Review:
'Suppose we could peer through a tiny peephole in time and chance upon a flash of what was coming up in the years ahead?' The questioner is Kinsey Millhone, middle-aged, two-time divorcee detective and junk food junkie star of Sue Grafton's popular 'alphabet' mysteries; the book is 'N' Is for Noose. If Kinsey had had just a smidgen of foresight, she would never have taken her current case, handed down to her from her on-again, off-again flame and comrade in arms, Robert Dietz. We encounter the two this time out after Deitz's knee surgery, as Kinsey drives his 'snazzy little red Porsche' back to Carson City, where she checks out his digs for the first time. To her surprise, he lives in a palatial penthouse, which--under the unspoken bylaws of investigative etiquette--she qualmlessly snoops through. They sit around for a fortnight playing gin rummy and eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches together, but perennially single Kinsey grows wary: 'It was time to hit the road before our togetherness began to chafe.'
She heads off to meet Dietz's former client, Mrs. Selma Newquist, a devastated widow whose makeup tips seem to come from Tammy Faye Baker. Her husband Tom Newquist, a detective himself, had been working on a mysterious case when he abruptly died of a heart attack. Selma suspects foul play, but bless her, she isn't the brightest star in the sky and can't figure out what Tom was working on even though he's left behind enough paper to fill a recycling truck. Kinsey digs right in and roams the sleepy, one-horse town of Nota Lake for clues, interviewing a colorful cast of in-laws and locals. Beneath the quaint, quiet, country veneer, she unearths a bubbling hotbed of internal strife and familial double-dealing. Was Tom covering up for his partner? Is Selma protecting someone? Grafton's knack for gritty details and realistic characters ('[Selma's] skin tones suggested dark coloring, but her hair was a confection of white-blond curls, like a cloud of cotton candy"), coupled with the fast-paced, believable story line, makes for another delightful, entertaining read. --Rebekah Warren, Bestsellers editor
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Quick Read with a Tiresomely "Non-Conclusion" Conclusion
Sue Grafton writes in an energetic, highly readable style and has the gift for creating memorable characters; at the same time, as the series has progressed it has aquired a formula quality, and where N IS FOR NOOSE is concerned Grafton makes an incredibly gross error that gives the work a distinctly unfinished feeling.
Kinsey Millhone is a no-nonsense private detective whose work usually consists of skip traces, missing persons, and leg work; on this occasion, however, she is summoned ... Read More
Rating:  - Not the Best...
This wasn't my favorite of the alphabet series, but was it was still good. In fact, I've read it twice. I read it a few years ago, then decided that I wanted to read the series in order. I've done that and it only made sense to refresh my memory with N is for Noose.
Parts of it seemed to drag, but the character of Kinsey and her resourcefulnesss make up for the slow parts. I look forward to the next book in the series.
Rating:  - Superb! The sinister plot makes for a stellar Kinsey mystery
Considering this is a Sue Grafton mystery with a particularly fast pace and a tense and unsettling plot, I was surprised to see some negative reviews on here. Someone compared the town that Kinsey is based out of in this mystery to Twin Peaks and I can see the similarities. Every character seems to be hiding something and protecting someone, but who!?!? This Grafton mystery has quite a dark tone to it, which I love, and I consider this to be one of my favorite Kinsey cases. Kinsey is a character ... Read More
Rating: - OK nightstand book
This is the first Grafton book I've read. It features Kinsey Millhone, a female private investigator who's doing a friend a favor by checking out some suspicions a widow has about her husband's last weeks. The husband died of quite natural causes; what is bothering the widow is how stressed out her husband was.
As with most simple cases, this one is everything but simple. No one wants to talk about the deceased or what might have been eating him. Everyone in the small California town east ... Read More
Rating: - Great Female Role Model, Great Writing
Does detective fiction get any better than Sue Grafton? Her 14th (N's place in the alphabet) in the famous series is another great piece of writing. Kinsey Millhone is one of the most likable protagonists in contemporary literature. She succeeds in a male-dominated field, but is still believable as a real woman, suffering from the same problems as the rest of us (dating woes, age sensitivity, unresolved family issues). My only concern is what will happen when I've finished reading the Z novel; there's ... Read More
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