T is For Trespass | 
 enlarge | Author: Sue Grafton
Creator: Judy Kaye
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $44.95
Buy New: $16.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  179 reviews
Sales Rank: 22189
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739323156
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739323151
ASIN: 0739323156
Publication Date: December 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
tres•pass \'tres-p s\ n: a transgression of law involving one’s obligations to God or to one’s neighbor; a violation of moral law; an offense; a sin –Webster’s New International Dictionary (second edition, unabridged)
In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton’s T is for Trespass is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the perspective of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing listeners to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private care-giving jobs. The true horror of this novel builds with excruciating tension as the listener foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The wrenching suspense lies in whether Kinsey Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene.
T is for Trespass–dealing with issues of identity theft, elder abuse, betrayal of trust, and the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent–targets an all-too-real rip in the social fabric. Grafton takes us into far darker territory than she has ever traversed, leaving us with a true sense of the horror embedded in the seeming ordinariness of the world we think we know. The result is terrifying.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 174 more reviews...
Grafton Won't Let You Down July 4, 2008
Sue Grafton's 20th book in the Kinsey Millhone mystery series, T is for Trespass, takes place in Santa Teresa, California, and artfully alternates between the view points of private investigator Millhone and con-artist Solana Rojas. Rojas snags a position as caregiver to Millhone's elderly neighbor Gus. Rojas has secretly held the same job under other aliases in the past and not only murdered her patients but emptied their estates. Millhone is asked to do a background investigation on the woman and while she first sees nothing out of the ordinary, she soon realizes that by saying Rojas was clean she had "unwittingly put a noose around Gus Vronsky's neck" (p.125).
Grafton's characters are believable and complicated. It is interesting to read Solana Rojas' justification of events. The reader comes to see how wicked, twisted, and evil she really is. Rojas becomes so engrossed in her stolen identity that she seems to forget she's anyone else and shows no conscious or remorse for those she is scamming. I found her incredibly frightening.
Kinsey Millhone is easy to relate to. She loves her job as a private investigator and is good at what she does, yet she is much deeper than that. She is an avid runner, yet she can't stay away from a quarter-pounder with cheese. She wants to keep away from her cute ex-boyfriend cop because she wants much more but can't help herself from secretly longing for him. I enjoyed uncovering clues about the true Rojas as Millhone discovered them, and feeling her frustration, excitement, and worry as the plot unfolded.
T is for Trespass is slow to begin with, but once the characters begin to unfold and their paths cross it is impossible to put the novel down. The prose is detailed yet easy to read and understand. The plot is well laid out and pleasingly unpredictable. Grafton does not let her fans down.
by Jennifer Melville
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
 T is for Three Star Review June 17, 2008
I found this entry in the Kinsey series to be noticeably better than 'Q is for Quarry', the most recent book I read prior to this one.
'Trespass' offers a solid premise, along with a change in the usual Kinsey-first person narration, both refreshing changes from 'Quarry'.
The real shortcomings with the story are in the insurance-fraud subplot, which is nothing but padding. Even the seemingly-;important points' Grafton (and Kinsey) try to make about sexual predators are obscured by the tediousness of this plot thread. At least Grafton wrote the story so that the subplots don't connect at any point, making it possible for readers to skip chunks of the story and pick up on the 'Solana' tale without really missing anything. That still doesn't excuse her for filling about half the book with a substandard case.
Even the main story has a somewhat weak ending, as Grafton suddenly changes Henry's behavior to make him into a 'helpless confused victim', much like Gus. The 'Perils of Pauline comparison made by another reviewer is certainly fitting!
I haven't read enough of the series to find out when Grafton began setting the books exclusively in the 80s. I don't have too much of a problem with this 'retro' feature, although the throwaway scene in the computer shop, where Kinsey scoffs at the idea that 'those things' will be useful in a few years, is a little too clever for her (and Grafton's) own good.
I'll try to work my way backwards and catch up with the series at 'B'.
 Wicked June 16, 2008
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
When Kinsey's crotchety octagenarian neighbor Gus takes a fall, the good hearted detective takes on the responsibility for seeing to his welfare. The nurse who is hired comes with glowing recommendations, but soon, a web of stolen identity, embezzlement, abuse, and murder swirls around her, and Kinsey's met her match. This plot is the best Grafton has produced in the last several years, with Kinsey juggling her personal life and her caseload, which, in addition to Gus's life threatening problems, include insurance fraud and a reclusive ex-con, best friend Henry's tangled romance, and a Mexican tarantula, just to name a few of stumbling blocks that pop up to trip her. Even when all seems resolved, trouble still lurks in the wings to disturb Kinsey's peace of mind. In addition to the engaging main characters, Grafton can be relied upon to produce a lively cast of courageous allies and menacing villains without resorting to types. T is for Trespass is more than a mystery, it's an adventure, a look into the dark recesses of some souls, and into the finer instincts of others.
Love Sue Grafton - not one of her best though June 12, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I own and have read every Sue Grafton book she has done from the "A is for Alibi" to this "T is for Trespass." I was a little disappointed in this particular novel, as it seems she may be running out of good thriller stuff. This is stuff that is going on, unfortunately, but there wasn't much of a real good plot to carry the book from start to finish so there was much more about Kinsey Millhone's day-to-day life and some short little clips of other side stories. I really look forward to "U is for..." but I hope it has more of a development of a full book plot.
Suited me to a "T" June 8, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
In this, her 20th Kinsey Milhone novel, the author serves notice that she intends to do more in finishing her alphabet challenge than just publish by rote. I was a little afraid, when the series hit its "P's & Q's", that the lukewarm plotlines and supporting characters would carry on ad infinitum.
"S" helped restore my faith, and in "T", her newest, Grafton gives Kinsey a villain in the neighborhood. She lets the reader discover Solana Rojas' true name and background long before Kinsey snoops it out, and tells a portion of the tale from Rojas' point of view. This duality is not a signature move on Grafton's part, and enhances this particular story.
Rojas is really a grifter with an obese, developmentally challenged son named Tomasso. She's stolen the identity of the true Solana Rojas, a nurse she used to work with. She preys on elderly patients, who meet untimely deaths after she's looted their homes for anything of value. Gus Vronsky is a neighbor of Kinsey's and she's none too fond of the curmudgeon. When Gus falls, his niece Melanie hires a caregiver, the aforementioned Rojas. Kinsey actually helps Melanie by doing a background check of Rojas, never dreaming that the background she researches (a solid one) is of the woman whose identity was stolen, not the person who moves in with Gus, and begins to brutalize him. Melanie's convinced that Kinsey is a straight shooter, and puts her trust in Kinsey's assessment to hire "Rojas".
It doesn't take long for Kinsey to smell a rat, but the story becomes a lot more compelling when the faux Rojas begins to set Kinsey up for trouble of all sorts, when Kinsey begins to "snoop". Tomasso/Rojas is a true sociopath, who is brilliant enough to realize there are people in this world who will quickly become "on" to her act, and who sets about to destroy the credibility of those people. Like a forest fire, Tomasso doesn't target any one soul to bring down..she chars the earth around her targets. There's a clever twist to the tale involving service of process, where Kinsey is both giver and recipient.
Part of the charm of Grafton's novels (although Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone started out being a loner, long before Grafton wrote "A is for Alibi"), is the constant theme of Kinsey being such a loner. She's had some brief loves, she's surrounded and befriended primarily by people who are a generation older than she is, she lives alone, travels alone, wards off the attempts of family to include her, and is uniquely one of the more solitary long term heroines in today's fiction.
Even when Grafton is keeping things light, and there is a love interest, or some lightheartedness in Kinsey's work, in the backdrop there's always the solitude, and, from time to time, a truly life-threatening situation that Kinsey gets involved in, to break up her cycle of process serving and non-criminal investigations.
Elder abuse is no laughing matter, and the darkness and menace with which Rojas pursues her need to take over every part of Vronsky's life and wealth is compelling. In keeping the two narrative voices, Grafton manages to keep Kinsey's in character, and tell the tale as Tomasso/Rojas sees it as a true narcissistic storyteller. She also keeps the story true to its timeframe ('87-'88) The story comes crashing to a halt, and you are somewhat dismayed to find it is over...in keeping with some of the early alphabet mysteries, from the hand of a very fine author.
5 stars... a long time since I gave that to a Grafton novel!
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