Book ~ "K is for Killer" (1994) Sue Grafton

From Goodreads ~ When Kinsey Millhone answers her office door late one night, she lets in more darkness than she realizes. Janice Kepler is a grieving mother who can't let the death of her beautiful daughter, Lorna, alone. The police agree that Lorna was murdered but a suspect was never apprehended and the trail is now ten months cold. 

Kinsey pieces together Lorna's young life: a dull day job a the local water treatment plant spiced by sidelines in prostitution and pornography. She tangles with Lorna's friends: a local late-night DJ, a sweet funny teenaged hooker, Lorna's sloppy landlord and his exotic wife. 

But to find out which one, if any, turned killer, Kinsey will have to inhabit a netherworld from which she may never return.

It's the 1980s and Kinsey Millhone is a private detective in Santa Teresa, CA, in her thirties.  She is hired by Janice to investigate the death of her daughter, Lorna.  Lorna had been found dead and badly decomposed ten months earlier in her home and the police rules she had died naturally as a result of an allergic reaction.  Janice hasn't been coping well with Lorna's death and wants Kinsey to find out the truth.

Lorna was a receptionist at a water treatment plant by day and a successful high class prostitute by night.  As Kinsey investigates, she becomes friends with Danielle, a teenage prostitute, who hung out with Lorna.  Despite being hired by Lorna's mother, there is a lot of opposition to the investigation by Lorna's father and sisters.

I liked this book and found the story was okay.  The "whodunnit" is a bit convoluted, though, and there seemed to be a lot of information that could have been tighter or deleted.  It's written in first person perspective in Kinsey's voice.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

This is the eleventh in the "alphabet series" featuring Kinsey Millhone.  Though it is part of a series, it works as a stand alone.  I discovered this series in the mid-1990s and have read them all.  I started rereading them this year.  I read the latest, Y is for Yesterday, in October and with the author's death this week, Y is for Yesterday will be the end of the series.