This is part of an ongoing series of posts, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.
I got sucked into Sue Grafton’s alphabet mystery series while on vacation a few years ago. Before that, I could not have imagined reading any series that seemed to follow such a formulaic plan: each title of the series begins with a new letter of the alphabet. But while these books do follow a very predictable formula, Grafton is such a great writer that I’m happy to play along.
Kinsey Millhone, Grafton’s fictional detective, is a tough loner private investigator who lives in the always beautiful, southern California beach town Santa Teresa (a very close cousin to Santa Barbara). Grafton has been writing these books since the 1980s and while the world has taken leaps and bounds forward over the years, her novels are still set in the 1980s. The latest has only progressed as far as 1988, and half the fun of these books is reading about a time in our recent history when no one used computers or had cell phones.
From A is for Alibi all the way up until her most recent V is for Vengeance and all the letters in between, Grafton has written an impressive series.
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Over the years as Sue Grafton has had her series published, I have been an avid reader of her Kinsey Millhone series, from A for Alibi to V is for Vengeance. Kilnsey is an off the wall character, with one only good dress, she notes, to wear to a funeral, or a party. As a man, I could almost fall in love with her, as she is such a down to earth person. I am eagerly awaiting the rest of the series, all the way to “Z.” By then Kinsey should be retired, but I douby it.