Sue Grafton

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Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA) is a contemporary American author of detective novels.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early Years 1.2 Writing Career 1.3 Family 2 Bibliography 2.1 Early novels 2.2 Kinsey Millhone series 2.2.1 Also published 2.2.2 Plot outlines 2.2.2.1 A is for Alibi 2.2.2.2 O is for Outlaw 2.2.2.3 Q is for Quarry 3 References 4 Footnotes 5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early Years

Sue Grafton is the daughter of novelist CW Grafton and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children of Presbyterian ministers. Grafton and her sister Ann were raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She attended both the University of Louisville (freshman year) and Western Kentucky State Teachers College (sophomore and junior years)^[1] before graduating from the University of Louisville in 1961 with a bachelors degree in English Literature and minors in Humanities and the Fine Arts. ^[2]

After graduating, Grafton held various jobs as a hospital admissions clerk, cashier, and medical secretary in Santa Monica, California and Santa Barbara, California.^[2]

[edit] Writing Career

Grafton began writing when she was 18, finishing her first novel when she was 22. Two of her first seven novels were published.^[1] After their publication Grafton spent the next fifteen years^[3] writing screenplays for several television movies, including "Sex and the Single Parent," "Mark, I Love You," and "Nurse." her screenplay for "Walking Through the Fire" earned her a Christopher Award in 1979. In collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey, she adapted the Agatha Christie Novels "Caribbean Mystery" and "Sparkling Cyanide" for television, as well as cowriting "Killer in the Family" and "Love on the Run."^[2]

With her experience teaching her the basics of structuring a story, writing dialogue, and creating action sequences, Grafton felt ready to move into solo writing.^[3] While going through a "bitter divorce and custody battle that lasted 6 long years" Grafton would make herself feel better by imagining ways to kill or maim her ex-husband. Her fantasies were so vivid that she thought they might be worth writing down.^[4]

She had long been fascinated by mysteries that had related titles, including John D. MacDonald, who used color, and Harry Kemelman, who used days of the week. While reading Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which is an alphabetical picture book of children who die by various means, she had the idea to write a series of novels based on the alphabet. She immediately sat down and made a list of all of the crime-related words that she knew. ^[3] This exercise led to her best known works, a chronological series of mystery novels. Known as "the alphabet novels," the stories are set in and around the fictional town of Santa Teresa, which is based on the author's primary city of residence, Santa Barbara, California (Grafton chose to use the name Santa Teresa as a tribute to the author Ross Macdonald, who had previously used this as an alternative name for Santa Barbara in his own novels).^[5] All novels of the series are written from the perspective of a female private investigator named Kinsey Millhone. Grafton's first book of this series is "A" is for Alibi, written and set in 1982. The series continues with "B" is for Burglar, "C" is for Corpse, and so on through the alphabet. After the publication of "G" is for Gumshoe, Grafton was able to quit her screenwriting job and focus on her novels full-time.^[4] The timeline of the series is slower than real-time - "Q" is for Quarry, for example, is set in 1987, even though it was written in 2002. Her latest book, "S" is for Silence, was published in December 2005.

Grafton's "B" is for Burglar and "C" is for Corpse won the first two Anthony Awards, which are selected by the attendees of the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, ever awarded.^[6] She has won the Anthony Award once more, and has been the recipient of three Shamus Awards.^[7] In 2004, Grafton received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, given to "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence."

Grafton's novels have been published in 28 countries, in 26 languages including Bulgarian and Indonesian.^[8] She has refused to sell the film and television rights to her books, as her time writing screenplays had "cured" her of the desire to ever work with Hollywood again.^[3] Grafton has even threatened to haunt her children if they sell the film rights after she is dead.^[9]

[edit] Family

Grafton typically begins her day at 6 am with a three-mile walk along the beach with a good friend. After a shower, breakfast, and the morning paper, Grafton begins work at 9:00 a.m. She spends the morning and early afternoon doing research and working on her goal of writing two pages per day. In the late afternoon she exercises again, and then spends the evening with her husband. On weekends she likes to write but take a break from physical activity.^[10]

Grafton, who has been divorced twice before,^[4] has been married for over twenty years to Steven F. Humphrey. She has three children from previous marriages and several grandchildren, including a granddaughter named Kinsey.^[2] They live in Santa Barbara, California and Louisville, Kentucky, as Humphrey teaches at universities in both cities.^[4]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Early novels

• Keziah Dane (1967)
• The Lolly Madonna War (1969) - filmed as Lolly-Madonna XXX ^[11]

[edit] Kinsey Millhone series

• A is for Alibi (1982)
• B is for Burglar (1985)
• C is for Corpse (1986)
• D is for Deadbeat (1987)
• E is for Evidence (1988)
• F is for Fugitive (1989)
• G is for Gumshoe (1990)
• H is for Homicide (1991)
• I is for Innocent (1992)
• J is for Judgment (1993)
• K is for Killer (1994)
• L is for Lawless (1995)
• M is for Malice (1996)
• N is for Noose (1998)
• O is for Outlaw (1999)
• P is for Peril (2001)
• Q is for Quarry (2002)
• R Is for Ricochet (2004)
• S Is for Silence (2005)
• T Is for Trespass (2007)[1]

For more on Kinsey Millhone see Kinsey Millhone

[edit] Also published

• Kinsey and Me.  (1992) - a collection of Kinsey Millhone short stories along with other short stories about Grafton's own mother.

[edit] Plot outlines

[edit] A is for Alibi

"A is for Alibi" covers the investigation by Millhone into the death of Laurence Fife. The investigation is initiated by his wife, Nikki Fife, who was charged and convicted of his death. Eight years later, and upon her release, she sets Millhone the task of finding the real killer.

Grafton based the story to some extent on her own 'fantasies' of murdering her then husband prior to divorce. The choice of murder through a substitution of the contents of an antihistamine tablet with oleander meant that an alibi held no value since the tablet could have been switched a considerable time prior to someone actually taking the tablet.

Millhone finds out about a second death (Libby Glass) by the same means just several days after the death of Laurence Fife. With insufficient evidence, Nikki Fife was never prosecuted for the second death but it was assumed she had also killed the young accountant, who was rumoured to be having an affair with Laurence Fife.

The investigation leads Millhone to Las Vegas where a scheduled meeting with a former secretary of Laurence Fife ends with the former secretary being shot. Millhone suspects the ex-boyfriend of Libby Glass whom she had met with on the way to Vegas.

A relationship develops between Millhone and Laurence Fife's ex-business partner Charlie Scorsoni.

Millhone eventually discovers the real killer of Laurence Fife and Libby Glass.

[edit] O is for Outlaw

When the novel begins, Kinsey is surprised by a call from a storage space treasure hunter, who has some items that used to belong to Kinsey: old report cards, school projects, and other items from her childhood. It comes to light that Kinsey's first ex-husband, Mickey Macgruder, has defaulted on his storage space fees -- and Kinsey begins to wonder if Mickey is in some kind of trouble. Kinsey is also spurred to action by an old letter in amongst the items from the storage space. The letter, written by a woman named Dixie, alerts Kinsey to Mickey's innocence in the brutal beating and subsequent death of a man named Bennie. It was that attack which had caused Mickey's departure from the police force, and was the final straw in Mickey's and Kinsey's marriage. Even though Mickey's alibi was an adulterous tryst with Dixie, Kinsey begins looking for Mickey, to settle old scores and deal with old demons.

[edit] Q is for Quarry

"Q is for Quarry" was unique in that it was inspired by an actual unsolved "Jane Doe" murder in 1969 (though, being set in 1987, the murder was only 18 years ago in the book.) The details of the victim and crime scene in the book were almost identical to those of the real Jane Doe case, though Grafton made a few changes which are noted in the book's epilogue. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office gave Grafton an extraordinary level of cooperation, including letting her see a copy of the murder book and the victim's hair, clothing and mandible bone.

Additionally, the real Jane Doe's corpse was exhumed in July, 2001 and a clay facial reconstruction was made from her skull (photographs were included in the book's appendix.) Though Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office investigators Bill Turner and Bruce Correll were both eager to re-examine the case, Grafton's interest came at a time when law enforcement agencies statewide were facing a major budgetary shortfall. For that reason, Grafton offered to underwrite the cost of the exhumation. Jane Doe's body was re-interred with a Sheriff's Office honor guard on February 26, 2002. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office has received close to 100 tips since "Q" came out, but, to date, have been unable to identify Jane Doe or her killer.

[edit] References

• Natalie Hevener Kaufman, Carol McGinnis Kay (1997). "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone, Hardcover, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-5446-4. 

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• Official website—includes:
  • Kinsey Millhone's PI Report on Sue Grafton
  • Kinsey Millhone's Biography
• Sue Grafton at the Internet Movie Database
• Sue Grafton at the Internet Book Database of Fiction
• Book Reviews of Grafton