Bill:
We have been friends with Kinsey Millhone for over 15 years—remember ‘A’ Is for Alibi? Now Louisville native and author Sue Grafton delivers another gripping tale of her female sleuth in ‘O’ Is for Outlaw. bookclub@ket starts now.

Bill:
Probably the proper place to start is to start with Sue Grafton’s A, and we’ll each take a letter of the alphabet and go all the way through and tell about each novel until we get down to O, which is our discussion today.

Wilma:
I know those novels.

Dava:
I don’t.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
Now there—there’s the contrast. You know them. Gabrielle doesn’t. Jonathan, this is your first?

Jonathan:
Yeah. I haven’t read these novels.

Bill:
And Dava, you haven’t told us.

Dava:
O is the first of the alphabet for me.

Bill:
OK. Good.

Wilma:
I have read them all, including ‘P’ Is for Peril.

Bill:
Which is ...

Wilma:
Which is the one after this.

Bill:
Uh huh. This came out in ’99.

Wilma:
’99.

Bill:
So how much do we have to know, if anything, about Sue Grafton and Kinsey Millhone to discuss ‘O’ Is for Outlaw?

Dava:
I think the book stands alone. You can understand what’s going on.

Gabrielle:
Yeah.

Dava:
All mysteries seem to be kind of alike, even if you don’t know about the gumshoe him- or herself.

Bill:
So first ... Yeah; go ahead, Gabrielle.

Gabrielle:
I like the beginning, because she at least let me know that we were sticking to a specific time frame. And so when I read about someone smoking on a flight and some of those things, that helped me as I was reading through the book to know there was a specific time frame. So I was concerned because I was starting at O. That might be difficult, I thought, or I was wondering if there was a sequential order. But do you think you need to necessarily read them all?

Wilma:
No, I don’t. I don’t think so at all. I think—and some people have said they may have read ‘F’ Is for Fugitive first and then ‘A’ Is for Alibi, and so on—so you can jump around. I think one thing—and you talked about it at the beginning—the different time periods, which can be very confusing in the book; I thought about that, too, because actually this book was published in 1999, but she tells us at the very beginning that she is going back to 1986.

Bill:
That’s the time period.

Wilma:
In the series she’s at 1986. And yet she goes back and talks about two other time periods: 1971, when some of the characters were in Vietnam, and 1965, when other characters were in Vietnam, and 1961, when those characters were graduating from high school. And not only that, but she does also go back right at the beginning and talk about Kinsey Millhone, who is the main character, talks about her childhood and brings us up to date on that because she has found the box with her old, with memorabilia in it ...

Gabrielle:
Uh huh.

Wilma:
... including her old report cards from grade school. So I thought about time in this, and the whole thing is about time. It’s about the 20th century. It’s written at the end of the 20th century. And we’ve almost forgotten about that now, but if you remember, in 1998 and 1999 that’s what we were thinking about. We were thinking about the past. You know, rather than thinking about the future. So when I looked at this in the various time frames ... She actually even talks about buildings and how they have deteriorated, and she brings up that one building. She is in Male High School, which was built in 1915, and she talks about things in the ’30s, I think. Kinsey’s landlord has a car from the ’30s, and he has a filling from 1942. I mean, the entire thing ...

[Everyone laughs]

Wilma:
... is about various dates.

Bill:
Oh, Henry.

Wilma:
Yeah, good old Henry. About various dates. And I really think it’s looking back, and it’s the first time that we really go back in time.

Bill:
Well, that’s what I was going to ask. In Sue Grafton’s reporting of her other novels—and you’ve said this too—this is really the first time, down to P, that she really goes back and goes into a little history.

Wilma:
Yes. Now she always goes back and talks about some specifics in Kinsey Millhone’s life, but we don’t actually go back there. She mentions her aunt or someone from the past, but we don’t actually go back to that time period. This time we go back to her first husband and that time period in the Vietnam War, and then a period right after that. So this is actually a time travel book back in time. And she solves a murder from 1965 and a murder from 1986, actually, or a shooting, so she solves murders.

Jonathan:
Well, yeah, I think of the idea of it ... Going back into the past is so important because it’s really about lost secrets.

Wilma:
Yes.

Jonathan:
Secrets of things that happened in the past which are now discovered. This is really her job as a private investigator: to find out the truth, where the truth has been hidden. And I like the way it began. I like the way it began with her getting a phone call from a man who has found documents belonging to her which he has managed to get from a storage locker that ... He spends his time bidding on and auctions the contents of storage lockers, and sometimes he gets really good stuff, and sometimes he gets real rubbish. And this time he got her private stuff from high school, and then the whole plot begins. I think it started well, and I like the way it begins with a letter that she had never read that was from ...

Wilma:
’72.

Jonathan:
... from her husband’s ...

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
... her ex-husband’s lover, which actually changed the way she saw her husband completely, now, 14 years afterward? Isn’t that right?

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
And I think it started well. I think it is quite good.

Bill:
Really quite heavy on plot and heavy on detail. I will say, at times the detail was almost unimaginable in that you would think that there is so much of it that it’s not all going to fit together, but she somehow makes the pieces really fit.

Jonathan:
Well, I think one of the fascinating things about it—I mean, it’s not the kind of novel I often read, detective thrillers—but it’s moderately enjoyable, and I think that one of the great pleasures in it is just seeing how the private investigator thinks, seeing the kinds of things she does in order to find out the evidence that she is looking for. The interviews, the break-ins—she breaks into houses ...

Gabrielle:
And the key locks.

Jonathan:
... and the key locks and so on. And it really is full of detail, and detail that she discovers, some of which is more relevant than others.

Bill:
And she uses techniques that modern detectives might not use today. So much of it, I guess, is done investigatively on the Internet—background checks and all of that—and she really goes and knocks on doors and still talks to people and breaks into places and dusts for her prints and wears gloves and things like that. So there is a lot of ’80s detective work going on, I guess.

Jonathan:
Yeah. And one thing that is missing in her toolbox, you might say, that somebody would have today, that is a cell phone.

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
Because when she is being chased again ...

Bill:
That’s right.

[Everyone laughs]

Jonathan:
... by the villain 

Dava:
That’s true.

Bill:
Exactly.

Jonathan:
She’s being chased, and she has no way of contacting anybody.

Bill:
Yeah.

Jonathan:
Whereas today she would be phoning ...

Bill:
Oh, sure.

Jonathan:
... in this case the FBI; her contacts in the FBI. She would be phoning them from the car.

Bill:
You know what the other thing I thought of, too—and here we go. We are going to rewrite the end of the novel. I thought she took the tape recorder in to record some conversations between a couple that she meets at the very end ... And I’ll leave it up to Wilma to decide whether or not we are going to spell out the very end of the book.

[Everyone laughs]

Wilma:
Oh, you mean Mark and Ethel?

Dava:
Dum-da-dum dum.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
Laddy and Mark. But I thought “Why wasn’t she wired?” for a moment.

[Everyone agrees]

Bill:
I sort of lapsed into, “Why wasn’t she wired and talking into her lapel?” and all of this. Well, they probably didn’t, I don’t know, in the ’80s ... They probably had that, but she didn’t have it.

Wilma:
They did have that, but she mentions that she wasn’t wired. I mean, at that point she said, “Of course I wasn’t wired,” so the two policemen out in the car or the two detectives—policemen, I think—out in the car couldn’t hear what was going on in there. She was only recording what was going on in the Bethel House.

Bill:
Well, we sort of skipped a whole lot in between there. Somebody kind of fill in some blanks that we haven’t talked about.

Dava:
Well, it’s just mind-boggling how many characters are in this book.

Bill:
It is.

Dava:
How many subplots are going on at the same time. You meet a whole lot of people. You meet Dixie, who is Mickey’s former lover—and, well still is his lover—and her husband, Eric. And you meet people over at the Honky Tonk. You got Tim, the owner; and Thea, the waitress; and her boyfriend, Scott, who is the son of Pete, who is a cop that worked with Mickey; and you have people from Louisville that are connected to Mark Bethel and Laddy and they are also connected to Benny ...

Wilma:
Benny Quintero.

Dava:
... Quintero; and then Benny’s brother, Duffy. One of the things I liked about this book ... It’s like, you know, I really was thinking, “How can all these people have something to do? How can every one of them?” And then I get to the end, and unless I have missed something, really, Dixie and Eric—what do they do but have affairs and want to have affairs with each other? But I mean, I think that’s kind of neat because it makes you think the entire time.

Jonathan:
Well, also, as with many whodunits, they need to give you some decoys. I mean, they need to say, “Here is this character and they have a motive for killing Mickey.” And then because the question is who actually shot Mickey—eventually killed him—we didn’t know that until the end.

Gabrielle:
Who did you think did it?

Jonathan:
Who do you think did it?

Gabrielle:
First.

Jonathan:
She gives us a number ... She gives us a number of people who might have done it with motives. Thea has a motive for doing it because ...

Bill:
Who is Thea?

Jonathan:
She is Scotty’s girlfriend.

Dava:
The waitress.

Jonathan:
Scotty has a motive ...

Bill:
In the Honky Tonk.

Jonathan:
... because Mickey is having an affair with his girlfriend, and Thea has a motive for doing it because she learns that he’s seeing another woman. And Dixie has a motive for doing it for similar reasons.

Dava:
You know, it’s just all affairs.

[Everyone talks at once]

Bill:
... Eric.

Jonathan:
Eric has so many reasons because his wife is being unfaithful to him.

Bill:
Gabrielle, that’s one of the things I want to talk about, is ...

Gabrielle:
Who did you think did it first?

Bill:
Yeah.

Gabrielle:
Like, as you were reading it.

Bill:
Who did you think?

Gabrielle:
At first I thought, as I was reading through, I thought it was Tim. But then when they exposed that—it was the credit card thing—I thought, “Oh, I have got the wrong person.” But I went back and forth, and I got a little confused as they started adding more of the characters and doing more going back in history. So sometimes they would introduce names, and I’d think, “I have read that name before,” but I wanted to get to the end and find out who did it, so I tended not to go back.

Bill:
I’ll just bet that Wilma knew from the very first.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
Probably five pages in, who did it.

Dava:
No.

Bill:
Did you know who did it?

Wilma:
No. No, I really didn’t.

Bill:
Did you guess?

Wilma:
Actually, no, I didn’t guess at all. And I had read this before this time, and to tell you the truth, I even forgot in between having read this a year or two ago and reading it this time. I went, “Now who ...?” I forgot who did it.

[Everyone agrees]

Bill:
Oh, really?

Wilma:
Yeah. So I had forgotten for a little while, and then I did remember after a while. But I think that’s one thing that Jonathan was saying. There are so many kind of side plots and diversions, and various characters had motives, so you can’t keep up with it. I mean, you can’t keep up with exactly who might have done it because too many people had motives.

Gabrielle:
Right.

Wilma:
But that’s actually a good mark of a, of a good mystery book or detective book.

Dava:
One of the things I didn’t like as much: It seemed like [for] the entire first half of the book, at least, the only motive was somebody having an affair.

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Dava:
You know, somebody slept with four different people. It all has to do with people in the sack. And I was looking for something else, maybe a different motive. I understand Kinsey had to have time to uncover things, but ...

Bill:
I guess what surprised me a little bit about that—how did you just phrase that, Dava? In the sack? I think that was the terminology ...

Dava:
The technical term.

Wilma:
[laughs]

Bill:
After we found three-quarters of the way through that Mickey, her first husband, who she had left under some unusual circumstances, which we will talk about in a few minutes—but now he’s in a coma because he was shot. But you go back and sort of learn a lot about him. And apparently he was still having several treats with two women at the same time. And do you think Kinsey was even surprised at that a little bit? I think she was.

Wilma:
Well, she knew him.

Bill:
She knew him, but ...

Wilma:
And she knew that he always had other women. But an interesting part of the novel is that then we go into the Vietnam part, and we don’t know what part that is going to play in the murders and the intrigues within the characters and so on. So even though you start out with a jealousy type of thing, when you get into Vietnam and so many of the characters have been there, you find out ... Then you start thinking, “Well, what does this have to do with anything?” And then she throws us off with a red herring of ... Well, owing money is one thing—yeah, that’s one thing—but the other thing was the credit card fraud.

[Everyone agrees]

Wilma:
The identity—actually not credit card fraud, and I think this is important to the book—identity fraud. You know, they took the entire identities of other people, not just including credit cards, but also drivers’ licenses and that type of thing.

[Everyone agrees]

Wilma:
So I think the whole thing ...

Bill:
That Mickey ...

Wilma:
There is a theme there about identity.

Bill:
... was on to.

Gabrielle:
Right, right.

Bill:
And Mickey was on to it.

Wilma:
And Mickey was on to it.

Bill:
What were the others? I know you mentioned the other two. What were the other red herrings that seemed to crop up here and there besides the identity theft? Was there another element or two that was thrown in there to take you down another path?

Wilma:
Well, there was the Louisville connection. And I will tell you ...

Bill:
Yeah.

Wilma:
... this is the first time. I think Kinsey does mention that she has been to Louisville or Kentucky one other time, briefly ...

Bill:
In another.

Wilma:
... on one other case ...

Bill:
I was going to ask you that.

Wilma:
... but this is very, very unusual for her to take any time in Louisville. In all her stories Kinsey is in California. So Sue Grafton’s stories take place in California, which is fine. I mean, that’s not a complaint. But for Sue Grafton to come back to Louisville, not just to just kind of be there, but she travels around. She spends some time in Louisville; she goes to different places; she travels around the streets. She specifically mentions Male and Manual and St. X and Atherton high schools.

Bill:
She talks about architecture ...

Wilma:
She talks about architecture ...

Bill:
... in the neighborhoods.

Wilma:
... and the neighborhoods and some of the people that were there in various times. And I really think because Sue Grafton very much identifies—and she has said this before—with Kinsey Millhone, I really think, again, it’s a return to Sue Grafton’s past, too. See, I think the whole thing is about the past.

Bill:
Although ...

Wilma:
It’s about the times. And I don’t mean that she went to any of these high schools or whatever. I just mean that to come back to Louisville is in some way walking down the street she’s been [on] before.

Bill:
So she really doesn’t do that in the other novels?

Wilma:
Oh, no.

Bill:
Hmmm.

Wilma:
No.

Bill:
That is kind of an interesting ... That is one of the questions I had. I was curious about [that] because I have not read all the way through. I think I told you earlier that I’ve gotten through maybe F or G.

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Bill:
‘G’ Is for Gumshoe, right?

Wilma:
Uh huh.

Bill:
And I didn’t get to that one. What did you tell me F was for?

Wilma:
Fugitive.

Bill:
You know them all, don’t you?

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
I am trying to trip you up here.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
So ‘O’ is for “outlaw.” And we were just discussing earlier, where does that come in? And are there any opinions before we go to the answer lady?

Jonathan:
Well, firstly, I mean any of her novels could be called “outlaw” because it’s always about somebody who’s committed a felony. So I don’t really see what particularly this has to do with “outlaw” other than the obvious fact that there are a number of outlaws in it. But I’m sure there are in all the other mystery fictions that she deals with. On the other hand, she also breaks a lot of rules. I mean, she’s upfront. She is humorous, isn’t she, about her own methods? And she makes jokes about herself and about how she’s always going through police tape and breaking the law, so she’s a bit of an outlaw herself. But I know Wilma has got thoughts on this.

Bill:
And she is kicking me under the table.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
She wants to be the first one to tell us.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
OK: your theory on ‘O’ Is for Outlaw.

Wilma:
OK. And I think it’s hard to get O into a title. You know, it’s a difficult letter. She said, for instance, P was easy—“pistol.” I mean, she used “peril,” but there were lots of P words that could be worked in. So I’m sure she stretched a little bit, but I think it’s a clue. Because Mark Bethel is a lawyer, and I think it’s “out law.”

Everyone:
Hmmm.

Wilma:
Remember, Kinsey thinks that it has something to do either with the soldiers in Vietnam or with the police department which Mickey McGruger was part of. But it’s about the law. And there is another clue in here, too. And it has to do with ...

Bill:
Yes.

Wilma:
... one of my favorite passages. And it’s where Kinsey goes to see the two old women and the cat.

Bill:
Cordia and, uh ...

Wilma:
Cordia, Belmira ...

Everyone:
Belmira.

Bill:
Belmira.

Wilma:
... and Dort the cat.

Bill:
Dort [laughs].

Wilma:
And see, these are witches. So this is actually a visit to a witch’s house.

Bill:
Tell us all quickly about Dort.

Wilma:
A reincarnated ...

Bill:
Was it another sister?

Wilma:
... reincarnated sister of Belmira’s and ...

Bill:
Cordia.

Wilma:
... Cordia.

Bill:
Cordia.

Wilma:
Thank you. When Belmira is turning over the tarot cards, which is very interesting, because she actually tells the future there. If we are talking about time, she’s telling Kinsey Millhone her future. And at one point she turns over a card, and she says, “The king of cops.” And Kinsey said, “Did you say the king of cops?” And she said, “Oh, no, this is not about cops.” She said, “I didn’t say cops; I said king of cups.” In other words, she tells us there, this isn’t cops. You have misunderstood; this isn’t cops at all. She says “king of cups” and then she talks about a double-dealing, treacherous person and so on. And so I think that’s a clue, too. So I think it’s a type of clue, and I could be wrong, but there is no other reason to call this “outlaw,” just because of what Jonathan was saying. Sure, any of them could be outlaw because everything is outside the law. But I think this is more specific than that.

Bill:
To the law.

Wilma:
I think the law, and I think it’s pointing toward Mark Bethel.

Bill:
Is, then, that reference outside the ...

Wilma:
I am just making this up.

Dava:
It’s her investigative work.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
No, no, seriously ... But you are saying that he is outside of his legal practice.

Wilma:
Of his law.

Bill:
Of his ...

Wilma:
Yeah.

Bill:
... of his law.

Wilma:
Yeah, because law I think most specifically refers to Mark Bethel.

Bill:
Well, Dava is not buying this, Wilma.

[Everyone laughs]

Dava:
I just find it great that she has thought about this so much.

Wilma:
Well, I’ll tell you: I’m into detail a lot, so when I get a book like this with detail, I want to know more.

Bill:
Is that the part you were going to refer to, about king is for cops? And were you going to read a passage?

Wilma:
Oh, I don’t know that I was going to read a passage, but there’s so much in this section with the two sisters and their cat, because they always have a cauldron on the stove. There is always something in the pot. And they’re telling all kinds of future kinds of things and it’s all horrifying.

Bill:
When she meets the two sisters and the cat, at first they really are very accepting of her. Why, when she goes back—remind me, please—did Cordia all of a sudden turn cool to her coming back?

Gabrielle:
Yeah, she thought Kinsey was going upstairs. And up until that point, she had been asking permission to view the apartment, and I think she felt betrayed: Here I am; I have befriended you, and now you are sneaking behind my back.

Bill:
Is that the only reason she was upset?

Gabrielle:
Uh huh.

Dava:
I was wondering about that myself.

[Everyone talks at once]

Wilma:
... overreaction.

Dava:
Yeah.

Bill:
What do you think?

Wilma:
Yes, I thought it was an overreaction, but I am taking this as [being] like a witch’s haven—the idea that they are in control of her and they think she has gone outside their control. And the witches there—I mean, this is a light novel. There are very definitely “double double, toil and trouble” in that. So I just think the idea that she went outside of what they were doing there. They were angry, but I’m not sure ...

Bill:
Well, for me, when you read anything like this that has so much description, and you’re painted such a clear picture, for me it works. And I think when she goes into Mickey’s apartment and you see just about exactly where she is walking and what she looks for ... And I could see her as she goes through. We talked about that. Mickey was an unusual character in that way, wasn’t he, Jonathan, in where he kept things and hid things?

Jonathan:
Well, he was a hoarder. He was also ... I think he was kind of a survivalist. He was expecting a world catastrophe, like a breakdown of law and order in the United States followed by rioting, and he had to defend himself, so he had a lot of six-guns hidden in his apartment. Also he had lots of five-gallon drums of water for a survivalist situation. Also he subscribed to a survivalist magazine, which she finds in his mailbox. So he was a very careful person—which for me makes it all the more incredible and unbelievable that finally, at the end of the novel, he left her all his money in his will because after 14, 15 years of separation he hadn’t bothered to change his will. I couldn’t believe that for a man who kept gold coins in his bathroom and had hidden all his money everywhere. I just couldn’t believe that. But to answer your question: Yeah, we don’t know much about him, frankly, but we knew he was a womanizer, and we knew he was a hoarder.

Bill:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
What do you think about this leaving the money to her in his will? I mean, did that strike you as a bit far-fetched at the end?

Dava:
Sure, but then I’m thinking ...

[Everybody laughs]

Dava:
... did he even have a family? I mean, she never even mentioned that. I wondered if he had anybody else, and it appeared to me his life was a bunch of buddies over at the Honky Tonk and some women he saw.

Bill:
Was that his only marriage, or had he been married once before? No. Maybe that was his only marriage, too.

Dava:
Yeah.

Bill:
So there weren’t any children that we know of or anything like that. I thought his character was pretty well drawn, although throughout, of course ... We first meet him when he’s in the coma, and then we go back and we sort of learn a great deal of detail about him, so it really didn’t surprise me that much.

Jonathan:
OK. Well, it struck me as a bit incredible.

Bill:
Yeah.

Jonathan:
And let me say two other things about the end, because I think it begins very well, [and] I like much of the middle, particularly the description of her investigation. But the ending, when she interrogates Mark Bethel and tells him what she thinks he’s done ...

Bill:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
It strikes me [that] he gives up too easily.

Bill:
Uh huh.

Jonathan:
He confesses just like that.

Bill:
I was a little troubled by the end.

Jonathan:
And also, when she and he are having a confrontation, and Duffy comes to save her, instead of just tackling him or something like that, he goes and gets a tractor ...

[Everyone laughs]

Jonathan:
... and tries to run him over with a tractor. It struck me as very far-fetched and incredible, and I think the novel began well and it didn’t end well.

Bill:
We are all frustrated writers. And I wondered why ... Of course, you are always looking at a movie or reading something and thinking, “Why didn’t they do this. Why didn’t they take that road?” Why didn’t she stop going out the gate where the detectives were? Mark Bethel was following her, and obviously there was going to be some kind of confrontation there. She wanted to get to ...

Wilma:
To Duffy.

Bill:
... to Duffy. But still, I would have stopped. I mean ...

Wilma:
I would have.

Jonathan:
Sure.

[Everyone laughs]

Bill:
Yeah.

Wilma:
But she made some excuses: They were with other policemen, which didn’t matter at that point.

Bill:
No.

Wilma:
And then I think she made the bigger excuse that “I have got to get to Duffy because I know Mark is going there and he’s going to kill him.” And apparently Duffy ...

Dava:
She would lead to ...

Wilma:
Right. Duffy could take care of himself.

Gabrielle:
Right.

Bill:
All right. If Wilma, for some reason, doesn’t want to talk about her favorite character, and I want you ... Do tell me your favorite character; and if Wilma wants to join in, you can. Who did you like or [think] was well-drawn, that you really thought she did a good job of?

Jonathan:
Kinsey herself is. She is the narrator and protagonist. She’s the person we know best.

Dava:
For some reason I liked problem Duffy.

[Everyone agrees]

Dava:
He was really greasy and gross, but ...

[Everyone laughs]

Dava:
... pretty fun.

Bill:
Yeah.

Gabrielle:
I liked the landlady.

Bill:
Oh.

Gabrielle:
The landlady and the sister, and I just really ... I could visualize them.

Bill:
Well, I liked Porter Yont.

Jonathan:
Yeah.

Everyone:
Ohhhh.

Jonathan:
I can see that.

Bill:
I thought he was really well done. I can just see him at the bar drinking and eating and going through that. I just thought, just an old curmudgeonly newspaper editor who had sort of settled into senior-citizen life. I thought she really did a good job when ...

Jonathan:
I agree.

Bill:
... she went back to Louisville. OK, Wilma.

Wilma:
What I was going to say was, she is so detailed even in the smallest character. Now Porter Yont was a good character, but he didn’t have to be drawn so completely. She said he is 80 years old and he has bushy eyebrows, electric green eyes, and he’s ... I think he is balding at the time. Every character, no matter how brief the person is in the novel, gets a full description, and I think that’s one reason why we can say, “I liked Duffy” or “I liked the sisters”—or certainly Kinsey.

Bill:
Now she is down to ‘P’ Is for Peril ....