Kinsey Milhone is back in the fifth book in author Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. Happily divorced and living a relatively quiet life, she’s spending the holidays alone. Her plans for solitude are soon interrupted when she receives a bank slip in the mail for a deposit of $5,000 into her account that she didn’t make. When the insurance company she occasionally does work for asks her to investigate an insurance claim, which brings her back in touch with an old friend from high school. The family is quite wealthy, but it seems arson might be behind the recent loss of part of their business.

Soon, it becomes quite evident that Kinsey is being set up. She loses her office and her reputation as she’s implicated in bribery and a cover-up. To make matters worse, her ex-husband shows up back in town, and he’s cramping her style. Her sometimes boyfriend has taken off for the holidays to go skiing with his wife and kids. Kinsey is isolated in many ways and has no one she can depend on to turn to. It’s up to her to clear her name.

I think we’re meant to like and feel sympathy for Kinsey, but I found that hard. She insists she’s content to be by herself, yet spends a lot of time examining her last marriage in which her husband cheated on her and left her. The truth of that situation is part of the mystery, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for her being cheated on when she’s the other woman to a married police officer!

Kinsey’s past relationship with one of the daughters in the Wood family draws her into the family troubles rather quickly, even though she hasn’t really had any contact with them in years. Everyone could be a suspect, and there’s no easy path for Kinsey to take. Solving the mystery means putting herself in danger multiple times.

The mystery was pretty good as I couldn’t figure it out until the end. There were so many possibilities and red herrings that I couldn’t decide which one was the correct one. The family she’s working with is large, crazy, and rich. It makes for an interesting setting. There’s an ongoing theme of her not dressing properly for the occasion, which I can sympathize with.

After reading this, I’m wondering where Kinsey will go from here. She’s happy at the end when her landlord returns from his visit to Michigan over the holidays, and her usual haunt, Rosie’s, reopens. These are the people who ground her in many ways. They are the closest she has to a family, and she takes comfort in the familiarity of having them around. The setting of this book was difficult for her because she was so isolated from what she usually depended on.

Her ex-husband, Daniel, was an interesting character. Kinsey must have learned from her mistakes, because it seemed like all the warning signs were there about him, and she just didn’t pay attention. He seems to genuinely care for her, but he always makes the choice that will benefit himself most of all. The reason he left her is finally exposed, and I was a little surprised by it since E is for Evidence was first published in 1988, and certain things were still pretty taboo in the culture then.

The narration by Mary Peiffer is well done. She crafts a different voice for each member of the Wood family, which seems to suit them, without going overboard. Kinsey still has the same deep, mannish voice she’s used before in the series, but I think she lightened it up a bit here. She wants Kinsey to sound tough, but I think that can be done without making her sound like a male.

E is for Evidence was a decent mystery. I liked how Kinsey was isolated, but her level of self-awareness could use some awakening. She laments losing her husband to another woman, while at the same time, she is lamenting that her boyfriend is spending the holidays with his wife and kids. Perhaps she will grow from here, realizing how she’s isolated herself in life, and when she needs friends, there’s really no one she can reach out to for help. Or, maybe not.

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