Sue Taylor Grafton is a contemporary
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' (
"A" Is for Alibi, etc.) featuring private investigator
Kinsey MillhoneKinsey Millhone is the name of a fictional private investigator created by Sue Grafton for her "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. Millhone appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton. Grafton's mystery novels featuring Millhone are set in 1980s Santa Teresa, a fictionalized town...
in the fictional city of
Santa Teresa, CaliforniaSanta Teresa is a fictionalised version of Santa Barbara, California, created by Ross Macdonald in his mystery The Moving Target .In the 1980s, the writer Sue Grafton began using a fictional Santa Teresa as the setting for her novels featuring her lead character Kinsey Millhone, a fictional female...
. The daughter of detective novelist
C. W. GraftonCornelius Warren Grafton was an American crime novelist. He was born and raised in China, where his parents were working as missionaries...
, she has said the strongest influence on her crime novels is author
Ross MacdonaldNot to be confused with John D. MacDonaldRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar...
. Prior to success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.
Early years
Born in
LouisvilleLouisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
,
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, Sue Grafton is the daughter of novelist
C. W. GraftonCornelius Warren Grafton was an American crime novelist. He was born and raised in China, where his parents were working as missionaries...
and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children of Presbyterian ministers. Grafton and her sister Ann were raised in Louisville.
She attended both the
University of LouisvilleThe University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
(freshman year) and Western Kentucky State Teachers College (sophomore and junior years) before graduating from the
University of LouisvilleThe University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in
English LiteratureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
and minors in humanities and fine arts. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi.
After graduating, Grafton worked as a hospital admissions clerk, a cashier, and a medical secretary in
Santa MonicaSanta Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
and
Santa Barbara, CaliforniaSanta Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
.
Writing career
Grafton began writing when she was 18 and finished her first novel four years later. She continued writing and completed six more manuscripts. Two of these seven novels were published. Unable to find success with her novels, Grafton turned to screenplays. Grafton worked for the next 15 years writing screenplays for
television movieA television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
s, including
Sex and the Single Parent,
Mark, I Love You, and
Nurse. Her screenplay for
Walking Through the Fire earned a
Christopher AwardThe Christopher Award is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, motion pictures and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit"...
in 1979. In collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey, she also adapted the
Agatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
novels
A Caribbean MysteryA Caribbean Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 16, 1964 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings and the US edition at $4.50...
and
Sparkling CyanideSparkling Cyanide is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1945 under the title of Remembered Death and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in the December of the same year under Christie's original title...
for television as well as co-writing
Killer in the Family and
Love on the Run. She is also credited with the story upon which the screenplay for the made for TV movie
Svengali (1983) was based.
Her experience as a screenwriter taught her the basics of structuring a story, writing dialogue, and creating action sequences. Grafton then felt ready to return to writing fiction. While going through a "bitter divorce and custody battle that lasted 6 long years," Grafton imagined ways to kill or maim her ex-husband. Her fantasies were so vivid that she decided to write them down.
She had long been fascinated by mysteries that had related titles, including those by
John D. MacDonaldJohn Dann MacDonald was an American crime and suspense novelist and short story writer.MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many of them set in his adopted home of Florida...
, whose titles referenced colors, and
Harry KemelmanHarry Kemelman was an American mystery writer and a professor of English. He was the creator of one of the most famous religious sleuths, Rabbi David Small.- Early life:...
, who used days of the week. While reading
Edward GoreyEdward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...
's
The Gashlycrumb Tinies, an alphabetical picture book of children who die by various means, she had the idea to write a series of novels based on the alphabet. She immediately sat down and made a list of all of the crime-related words that she knew.
This exercise led to her best-known works, a chronological series of mystery novels. Known as "the alphabet novels," the stories are set in and around the fictional town of
Santa TeresaSanta Teresa is a fictionalised version of Santa Barbara, California, created by Ross Macdonald in his mystery The Moving Target .In the 1980s, the writer Sue Grafton began using a fictional Santa Teresa as the setting for her novels featuring her lead character Kinsey Millhone, a fictional female...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. It is based on
Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, outside of which Grafton maintains a home in the suburb of
MontecitoMontecito may refer to:*Montecito, California, a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California* Montecito , the codename used to designate a revision of the Intel Itanium 2 processor...
. (Grafton chose to use the name Santa Teresa as a tribute to the author
Ross MacdonaldNot to be confused with John D. MacDonaldRoss Macdonald is the pseudonym of the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar...
, who had used it as a fictional name for Santa Barbara in his own novels.)
In the series, Grafton writes from the perspective of a female
private investigatorA private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
named
Kinsey MillhoneKinsey Millhone is the name of a fictional private investigator created by Sue Grafton for her "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. Millhone appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton. Grafton's mystery novels featuring Millhone are set in 1980s Santa Teresa, a fictionalized town...
, who lives in Santa Teresa. In apparent tribute to Macdonald, Millhone refers to her private investigator license as a "photostat," as did Macdonald's character Archer. 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. After the publication of
"G" Is for Gumshoe, Grafton was able to quit her screenwriting job and focus on her novels.
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.
"T" Is for Trespass was released in December 2007 and
"U is for Undertow" was released on December 1, 2009. Grafton has publicly stated that the final novel in the series will be titled
"Z" Is for Zero.
Grafton's novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian. She has refused to sell the film and television rights to her books, as her time writing screenplays had "cured" her of the desire to work with Hollywood. Grafton has also threatened to haunt her children if they sell the film rights after she is dead.
Awards
Grafton's
"B" Is for Burglar and
"C" Is for Corpse won the first two
Anthony AwardThe Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher , one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America....
s, which are selected by the attendees of the annual
Bouchercon World Mystery ConventionBouchercon, the Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention, is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher....
, ever awarded. She has won the Anthony Award once more and has been the recipient of three
Shamus AwardThe Shamus Award is awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America for the best detective fiction genre novels and short stories of the year....
s.
On June 13, 2000, Sue Grafton was the recipient of the 2000 YWCA of Lexington Smith-Breckinridge Distinguished Woman of Achievement Award.
In 2004, Grafton received the
Ross Macdonald Literary AwardThe Ross Macdonald Literary Award is a U.S. book prize given each year by the Santa Barbara Book Council to "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence." The award is named in honor of California mystery novelist Ross Macdonald, whose novels were set in a...
, which is given to "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence."
In 2008 Grafton was awarded the Cartier Dagger by the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Crime Writers' AssociationThe Crime Writers Association is a writers' association in the United Kingdom. Founded by John Creasey in 1953, it is currently chaired by Peter James and claims 450+ members....
, honoring a lifetime's achievement in the field.
In 2009 Grafton received the Grand Master Award from the
Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
.
Family
Grafton, who has been divorced twice, has been married for more than 20 years to Steven F. Humphrey. She has three children from previous marriages and several grandchildren, including granddaughters named Erin and Kinsey. Grafton and her husband live in
Montecito, CaliforniaMontecito is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California. As a census-designated place, it had a population of 8,965 in 2010. This does not include areas such as Coast Village Road, that, while usually considered part of Montecito, are actually within the city limits of Santa...
, and
Louisville, KentuckyLouisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, as Humphrey teaches at universities in both cities.
Early novels
- Keziah Dane
Keziah Dane is a 1967 novel by Sue Grafton. A work of mainstream fiction, this novel was published by Grafton when she was 27 years old. This is one of only two Sue Grafton novels published before her more famous "Alphabet" series of mystery novels....
(1967)
- The Lolly-Madonna War
The Lolly-Madonna War is a 1969 novel by Sue Grafton. This is the fifth novel Grafton wrote but the second one published. A work of mainstream fiction, this novel was published by Peter Owen Publishers when Grafton was 29 years old. This is one of only two Sue Grafton novels published before her...
(1969) - filmed as Lolly-Madonna XXX- External links :*...
(1973)
Kinsey Millhone series
- "A" Is for Alibi (1982)
- "B" Is for Burglar (1985)
- "C" Is for Corpse (1986)
- "D" Is for Deadbeat (1987)
- "E" Is for Evidence (1988)
- "F" Is for Fugitive (1989)
- "G" Is for Gumshoe (1990)
- "H" Is for Homicide (1991)
- "I" Is for Innocent (1992)
- "J" Is for Judgment (1993)
- "K" Is for Killer (1994)
- "L" Is for Lawless (1995)
- "M" Is for Malice (1996)
- "N" Is for Noose (1998)
- "O" Is for Outlaw (1999)
- "P" Is for Peril (2001)
- "Q" Is for Quarry (2002)
- "R" Is for Ricochet (2004)
- "S" Is for Silence (2005)
- "T" Is for Trespass (2007)
- "U" Is for Undertow
"U" Is for Undertow is the twenty-first novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California. The novel, set in 1988, finds Kinsey investigating the disappearance of a 4-year-old girl in 1967 and the narrative...
(2009)
- "V" Is for Vengeance
"V" Is for Vengeance is the twenty-second novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California. The novel, set in 1988, is scheduled for release in the United...
(Scheduled for release on November 21, 2011)
For more on Kinsey Millhone, see Kinsey MillhoneKinsey Millhone is the name of a fictional private investigator created by Sue Grafton for her "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. Millhone appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton. Grafton's mystery novels featuring Millhone are set in 1980s Santa Teresa, a fictionalized town...
Also published
- Kinsey and Me (1992) - a collection of Kinsey Millhone short stories along with other short stories about Grafton's own mother.
- The Lying Game (2003) - a Kinsey Millhone short story which appeared in the September 2003 special 40th anniversary Lands' End
Lands' End is a clothing retailer based in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, that specializes in casual clothing, luggage, and home furnishings. The majority of Lands' End's business is conducted through mail order and Internet sales, but the company also runs more than a dozen retail operations, primarily in...
catalogue. It also appeared as a separate pamphlet given to attendees at Malice Domestic 2011 conference, where Grafton was recognized for Lifetime Achievement.
In popular culture
- In the "Mayham
"Mayham" is the sixty-eighth episode of the HBO original series The Sopranos and the third of the show's sixth season. It was written by Matthew Weiner, directed by Jack Bender and originally aired on March 26, 2006.-Guest starring:...
" episode of The SopranosThe Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
, Carmela sits by Tony's bedside in the hospital, reading Sue Grafton's "G" Is for Gumshoe.
- In the "Local Ad
"Local Ad" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's sixty-second episode overall. The episode was written by B. J. Novak, who also acts in the show as Ryan Howard, and directed by Jason Reitman...
" episode of The OfficeThe Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...
, Phyllis goes to a Sue Grafton book signing at the mall to try to get her to be in the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton branch commercial. She is told by Michael Scott not to take no for an answer. After waiting in line, Phyllis meets Grafton, only to be rebuffed by her. Phyllis continues to ask until she is thrown out of the store. Meanwhile, Andy and Creed talk about how "crazy hot" the author is.
- A scene in the film Stranger Than Fiction shows Prof. Hilbert reading a Sue Grafton novel ("I" Is for Innocent) while serving as a lifeguard.
- In the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
titled "To Whom It May Concern," Sookie confesses that she sits at the ski lodge reading "R" Is for Ricochet and "S" Is for Silence.
- In the television series Reaper
Reaper is an American television series that focuses on Sam Oliver, a "reaper" who works for the Devil by retrieving souls that have escaped from Hell.The series originally ran on the CW from September 25, 2007 to May 26, 2009....
, one of the things Ben looks for in his ideal woman is an interest in Sue Grafton novels.
- In Stieg Larsson
Karl Stig-Erland Larsson , who wrote professionally as Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish journalist and writer, born in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå. He is best known for writing the "Millennium series" of crime novels, which were published posthumously...
's novel The Girl with the Dragon TattooThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an award-winning crime novel by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson. It is the first book in the trilogy known as the "Millennium series"....
, protagonist Mikael Blomkvist sits down with "a detective by Sue Grafton."
External links