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over him. I could have crushed his skull, but as a courtesy, I refrained from doing
so. I pulled the handcuffs from my pocket. I grabbed the fingers of his right hand
and bent them backward, encouraging compliance. I lay the cuff on his right
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wrist and snapped downwards, smiling grimly to myself as the swinging of the
cuff locked into place. I put my left foot on the back of his neck while I yanked
his right arm behind him and grabbed his left. I would have stomped down on his
face, pulverizing his nose if he d as so much as whimpered. (319)
Millhone s power and fury endow her with a cruelty that barely is restrained when she subdues
Brant. This uncontrolled violent person is Millhone at her most terrifying. She gains partial
leeway by virtue of being drugged and feeling more detached from her moral code than usual.
While she gains a modicum of sympathy for being in a drugged state, in other texts such as F Is
For Fugitive, Millhone s comments about the rush of fighting and her desire to continue beating
her opponent even when the conflict is over, threaten reader allegiance. Millhone s wild desire
to continue to crush those with whom she fights is mediated by the fact that no matter what her
emotional response is to the combat or how powerful she feels while the rush is going on, she
remains in control and does not cross the boundary into brutality. While in the grasp of the
emotional urge to continue hurting her assailant, Millhone contents herself with the active
resistance advocated by self-defence instructors. Her self-control is what establishes her in the
role of detective.
Millhone also jeopardizes the hard-boiled detective s reliance upon a code of behaviour.
Warshawski s values remain strong and unchanging, but Millhone has a problem with the clear-
cut images of right and wrong: If bad guys don t play by the rules, why should good guys have
to? (Grafton, O 322). Millhone s moral ruler slides to accommodate the situations she
encounters. The unstable code gives her the room she needs, ethically speaking, to undertake
actions that might seem unsavory in stricter guidelines. It gives her the right to mislead and
conduct illegal searches with a clear conscience. Her use of the sliding code does not distract the
reader from understanding that this give in Millhone s code applies to her and not to the
criminals she is investigating. Millhone s code of justice does not slide when it is applied to
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others. Her sliding code also shows that Millhone is not as open about her political beliefs as
Paretsky s Warshawski, but she does have a belief system she tries to communicate through her
actions and judgments. What she transmits is the hidden truth that has been suppressed or
silenced: a truth akin to that which women proletarian writers tried to communicate.
Like Warshawski, Millhone is marked by the violence she experiences. It is not
something that disappears at the end of the novel. Her ordeal with Scorsoni haunts her for
several novels afterwards, making her wonder what kind of person kills, even in the line of duty,
as seen in this discussion between Millhone and her long time friend Henry:
I mean it. I am tired of feeling helpless and afraid, I said. & He said, So
defend yourself. Who s arguing with that? But you can drop the rhetoric. It s
bullshit. Killing is killing and you better take a look at what you did.
I know, I said. & Look, maybe I haven t dealt with that. I just don t want to
be a victim anymore I am sick of it.
He said, When were you ever a victim? You don t have to justify yourself to
me. You did what you did. Just don t try to turn it into a philosophical statement,
because it does not ring true. It s not as if you made a rational decision after
months contemplating the facts. You killed somebody in the heat of the moment.
It s not a political campaign and it s not a turning point in your intellectual life.
I smiled at him tentatively. I m still a good person, aren t I?
[Henry replies] What happened to you doesn t change that, Kinsey, but you have
to keep it straight. Blow somebody s brains out and you don t brush that off.
(Grafton, B 367)
Regardless of how she bends the rules to complete a case, Millhone sees herself as a
good guy, protecting the rights of others and correcting injustice. She cannot easily accept her
actions for several reasons. Her reflection upon her actions underscores the seriousness of the
violent acts. She does not take for granted her right to hurt others. This line of thought suggests
that while Millhone can get out-of-hand in physical fights, she understands the power of violence
to harm all parties and is not an advocate of a violent solution in all cases. In this manner, she is
not a threatening, out-of-control monster woman seeking to hurt society.
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Millhone is not an official of the mainstream authorized by society to use violence to
maintain order. That privilege is left for the official border keepers, such as soldiers, as
explained by Elshtain. Instead, Millhone is left wondering how to treat the situation. The key is
the idea that each incident is an individual situation. As Henry suggests, Millhone is considering
her actions on a one-on-one basis and resisting the urge to create an overarching philosophy
about the use of violence. Considering each incident on its own merits with its unique context
allows Millhone to see her actions as the only option available to her at that time. Creating a
larger rule of thumb may force her to see herself as a failure or a monster by de-contextualizing
the events. Context allows Millhone to retain her power and justifies her actions.
Power provides a thrill for Millhone. The items she uses during fights, such as her
weapon or other objects, seem to give Millhone strength. In N Is For Noose, Millhone finds the
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