Sue Grafton, Whose Detective Novels Spanned the Alphabet, Dies at 77<br />The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.”<br />Ms. Grafton read the Nancy Drew books and Agatha Christie growing up, but, she said, the first book<br />that really rocked her was Mickey Spillane’s “I, the Jury.”<br />“After Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, what a revelation!” she said, “and it may<br />have been the moment when the spirit of Kinsey Millhone first sparked to life.”<br />Kinsey’s debut, though, did not impress at least one critic.<br />“The rest are in the trash.”<br />“A Is for Alibi” was her eighth book and, she said, “my ticket out of Hollywood.”<br />The notion of the alphabetical series, she said, was inspired by “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,”<br />Edward Gorey’s macabre 1963 rhyming book in which 26 children meet bizarre ends.<br />With the publication of her latest book in August, Ms. Grafton’s alphabetical series had reached “Y Is for Yesterday.”<br />“She was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows,” her daughter wrote, “and in<br />that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name.
