Grafton wrote the popular Alphabet Mystery series featuring P. I. Kinsey Millhone.
Best-selling mystery author Sue Grafton, whose alphabet mystery series consistently topped USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list, has died. She was 77.
Grafton had been battling cancer and died around 11:30 p.m. Thursday in Santa Barbara, Calif., said her husband, Steve Humphrey.
Grafton’s series starred private investigator Kinsey Millhone and began with A is for Alibi in 1982. The penultimate book in the series, Y is for Yesterday, was released in August and made its debut at No. 1 on USA TODAY’s list.
The novels in Grafton’s alphabet series were generally released two years apart, and Humphrey said his late wife had not started writing the last book, so the series will not make it to Z is for Zero (she had long planned that title).
“She was trying to come up with an idea, but she never got one she liked,” Humphrey said. “With chemo, she didn’t have much energy or interest in that anyway. There will just be a 25-letter alphabet, I’m sorry to say.”
The novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages. In 2013, Grafton marked the series’ 30th anniversary with Kinsey & Me, a set of stories that revealed the investigator’s origins and gave insight into the author’s past.
Grafton, born in April 1940 in Louisville, Ky., graduated from the University of Louisville with a B. A. in English in 1961, according to a U of L profile of her. Over the years, she’s received more than 30 awards and honors.
“She was marvelous and fabulous and adored by everyone who knew her,” said Humphrey, her husband of more than 40 years. “She was very successful as a writer; very dedicated and very talented.”
Part of the fun of Grafton’s series were the clever titles and what word she would come up with to match each new letter. Titles included H is for Homicide, M is for Malice and W is for Wasted. For X, she went minimal, and the title was just X.
The novels were set in fictional Santa Teresa, Calif. In Y is for Yesterday, the year was 1989, and Millhone was drawn into a case involving a sexual assault at an elite private school.
In an interview with USA TODAY in 2009, Grafton was asked if Kinsey was “real” to her.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “For one thing, she is me. I know that doesn’t come as a big shock. She is the person I might have been had I not married young and had children. She is my unlived life. She has a fearless quality to her that adds some excitement to my life.”
And she explained why she never sold the rights to TV. “I’m doing you a personal favor by never selling them to Hollywood,” she said. “Trust me. Whoever they hired to play Kinsey, you’d go, ‘Oh that’s not her, oh, that’s so wrong.’ From that moment on, every time you pick up a Kinsey Millhone book, you’d be going, ‘Hilary Duff? Are you crazy? Miley Cyrus?’ “
The news of Grafton’s death prompted condolences from other writers on Twitter. Best-selling author Lisa Scottoline tweeted that Grafton “forged a path for women in crime fiction.”
Eric Jerome Dickey tweeted: “RIP. Thanks for the stories. They will live on forever.”
Humphrey said Grafton’s family and friends plan to hold a memorial service for her in California on Sunday.
“There is talk about doing a larger memorial service in New York in April,” Humphrey added. “Her literary agent is thinking of doing that before the Edgar Awards Ceremony,” which honors American mystery writers.
Grafton was honored as a Grand Master by the Edgar Awards in 2009.
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Bailey Loosemore reporting for Louisville Courier Journal; Jocelyn McClurg for USA TODAY.
