This is a Kinsey Millhone book, and it’s the last one we’ll ever get. You’re either here for that, or you’re not. If you’re the sort of person who reads a book like this and then complains about anachronisms, just move along. Seriously. “But airport security wasn’t that great until 9/11!” That varied a LOT by individual airport, and it wasn’t non-existent - the 21st century did not suddenly invent hijackings. “But I was a teenager in 1989 and I knew how to dupe a VHS, why doesn’t Kinsey know?” Because Grafton wasn’t writing this in a vacuum. Maybe she wanted to believe a young person might pick this book up at random some day and get interested in Kinsey, and maybe she wanted that young person to understand how different copying a recording during the VHS era was. Maybe she was just old, sick, and angry about dying, and wanted her editor to leave her book the hell alone. Who knows. My point stands - if you’re reading this book to make those kinds of arguments, just put it down and go read something else instead.

For my part, reading these last few Kinsey Millhone mysteries has been like revisiting an old friend I had missed. I’m glad we got as many as we did, I’m glad to have read them, and I’m sorry that this particular version of the alphabet ended in Y instead of Z.