Sue Grafton is a contemporary American fiction writer. She is best known for her mystery and crime novels. Her famous works include the detective novels based on alphabetical series.
Born on April 24, 1940, Sue Taylor Grafton was raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father C. W. Grafton was also a novelist. She studied at the University of Louisville and later transferred to Western Kentucky University. Then she majored in English Literature and minored in fine arts from University of Louisville in 1961. After graduation she worked a number of odd jobs as a cashier, clerk and a medical secretary.
At the young age of 18, Grafton began to write her first novel which took her another four years. Following years she produced six more novels but only two of them got published. Her failure to have the remaining novels published made her turn away from that genre as she tried her luck writing screenplays. Finally, she got her break when she started writing the screenplays and spent the next 15 years on this job. Her television screenplays include Mark, I Love You, Nurse and Sex and the Single Parent. In 1979, she won Christopher Award for Walking Through the Fire. She also successfully adapted an acclaimed writer Agatha Christie’s mystery works Sparkling Cyanide, Killer in the Family and A Caribbean Mystery.
After receiving experience working as a screenwriter she finally learned the art of storytelling, dialogue writing and plot construction for a novel. She went through an acrimonious divorce and the custody battle which filled her with poisonous feeling toward her former husband. She found satisfaction in her imagination where she would devise ingenious plans to kill and torture her husband. The intensity of her feelings would draw up most vivid scenarios to fulfill her desire to avenge which she later adapted in to her writing.
Grafton found mystery novels highly absorbing and intriguing. She used to enjoy mystery novels by John D. MacDonald and Harry Kemelman. Once she was reading Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies which planted a clever idea in her head to write a mystery novel series based on alphabetical order and each alphabet featuring a title related to crime. The idea eventually turned into a phenomenal, chronological series of mystery novels. The series is set in a fictional town in Santa Teresa, California. The story is narrated from the perspective of the protagonist, Kinsey Millhone, female private investigator.
The first novel in the series is titled, “A” Is for Alibi which is set in the time it was written in, 1982. It revolves around a murder investigation conducted by Kinsey. She is hired to solve a murder case occurred eight years ago of a divorce lawyer, whose wife was unjustly accused and imprisoned. Kinsey becomes partners with late lawyer’s colleague, Charlie Scorsoni, who helps her solve the case. The sequels follows in the series were titled “B” Is for Burglar (1985), “C” Is for Corpse (1986) and “D” Is for Deadbeat (1987). The series is not parallel with the real timeline as each book moves slowly in time, without having a year’s gap as the books were published in. By the time she penned “G” Is for Gumshoe quit screenwriting and worked as a fulltime novelist.
Sue Grafton has received numerous awards for her works including Anthony Awards for Best Novel (1986, 1987 & 1991) Shamus Awards, Ross Macdonald Literary Award (2004) and Cartier Dagger by the British Crime Writers’ Association (2008).
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