Comprehensive information and links about Sue Grafton

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

Her best known works are 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). 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 , was published in December 2005.

The daughter of novelist CW Grafton, 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.

In 2004, Grafton received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, given to "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence."

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

"A is for Alibi" covers the investigation by Millhone into the death of Laurence 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 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 table.

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.

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.

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

"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 was re-interred with a Sherrif'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.