Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Writer > G > Sue Grafton

Profile of Sue Grafton on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Sue Grafton  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 24th April 1940
   
Place of Birth: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA) is a contemporary American author of detective novels. Her best known works are a chronological series of mystery novels. Known colloquially 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). 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. 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 next book, "S" is for Silence, is due to be published in December 2005.

The daughter of novelist CW Grafton, Ms Grafton is a graduate of the University of Louisville, where she earned a bachelors degree in English Literature. In addition to her books, she has written for television and movies. Some of these works were in collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey.

Bibliography

Early novels

Keziah Dane (1967)
The Lolly Madonna War (1969) (filmed as Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973) - Internet Movie Database entry)

Kinsey Millhone Series

  1. A is for Alibi (1982)
  2. B is for Burglar (1985)
  3. C is for Corpse (1986)
  4. D is for Deadbeat (1987)
  5. E is for Evidence (1988)
  6. F is for Fugitive (1989) (ISBN 0805004602)
  7. G is for Gumshoe (1990)
  8. H is for Homicide (1991)
  9. I is for Innocent (1992)
  10. J is for Judgment (1993)
  11. K is for Killer (1994)
  12. L is for Lawless (1995)
  13. M is for Malice (1996)
  14. N is for Noose (1998)
  15. O is for Outlaw (1999)
  16. P is for Peril (2001)
  17. Q is for Quarry (2002)
  18. R Is for Ricochet (2004)
  19. S Is for Silence (2005)

Also published

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

Plots and comment

A is for Alibi

"A is for Alibi" covers the investigation by Millhone into the death of Laurance Fife. The investigation is initiated by his wife, Nikke 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 subtitution of the contents of an anti-histamine tablet with Oleander meant that an alibi held no value since the tablet could have been switched for a considerable period prior to someone actually taking the table.

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

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

A relationship develops betwene Millhone and Laurance Fife's ex-business partner Charlie Scorsoni.

Millhone eventually resolves the real killer of Laurance Fife and Libby Glass.

I is for Innocent

Kinsey Millhone helps Lonnie Kingman, who is right in the middle of putting together a civil suit. The private investigator who was helping him with his pretrial preparation has died from a heart attack, not long before the court's statute of limitations will catch up with his case. Five years ago, David Barney was acquitted of murdering his rich wife, Isabelle.

In the present case Kingman is acting as attorney for the dead woman's ex-husband and their child (because he feels the jury was wrong), and is bent on taking back from Barney the profits of that murder. However, time is short and David still maintains his innocence.

J is for Judgment

While investigating the reappearance of the long-presumed-dead Wendell Jaffe, Kinsey Millhone uncovers some unpleasant truths about her own family.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Sue Grafton