Sue Grafton, Whose Detective Novels Spanned the Alphabet, Dies at 77
The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.”
Ms. Grafton read the Nancy Drew books and Agatha Christie growing up, but, she said, the first book
that really rocked her was Mickey Spillane’s “I, the Jury.”
“After Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, what a revelation!” she said, “and it may
have been the moment when the spirit of Kinsey Millhone first sparked to life.”
Kinsey’s debut, though, did not impress at least one critic.
“The rest are in the trash.”
“A Is for Alibi” was her eighth book and, she said, “my ticket out of Hollywood.”
The notion of the alphabetical series, she said, was inspired by “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,”
Edward Gorey’s macabre 1963 rhyming book in which 26 children meet bizarre ends.
With the publication of her latest book in August, Ms. Grafton’s alphabetical series had reached “Y Is for Yesterday.”
“She was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows,” her daughter wrote, “and in
that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name.