The Alphabet Ends With Y: Missing a Woman I Never Knew*
* Loved Sue Grafton’s work, respected and admired what I knew of her, but never met her in real life and never will.
I was chatting with a librarian when a sign caught my eye: Sue Grafton, 1940–2017. Ranged around the sign were her alphabet series mystery books featuring incomparable private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
Oh, no.
We’d lost an incredible writer, an exceptional human being.
I’d known that Grafton was not well, but no specifics. Her latest Christmas card featured a photo of a resolute, beautiful woman in the grip of something terrible, but not sharing it with devoted readers.
With Kinsey Millhone, Grafton created a powerful, unique protagonist, one that she said was her alter ego. Countless writers credit her with showing what is possible, how a detective can be a real-live person who struggles with paying the bills, who empathizes with those involved in the crimes that she investigates, who is faithful, feisty, and funny even as she solves complex cases. For decades, Grafton wrote mystery novels as well as a memoir-based Kinsey and Me that flowed with perfect craft, settings and characters and plot so well-done that everything else in life dropped to low priority when I was reading her work.
Here is a tribute to Sue Grafton from an ardent reader who is so sorry that she died. I heartily understand and embrace the reality that there will be no more Kinsey Millhone stories, no adaptations, no rewrites, no ghost writers to step in and do what only Grafton could.
Her family has stated that for them there is no letter Z— and for us readers there is no neat, tidy closure to Grafton’s alphabet series with Z is for Zero.What we have is Grafton’s assurance that Kinsey does not die in the last book — and now it’s up to us to imagine what happens next.
Thank you, Sue Grafton, for your generous support of writers and readers alike. We are all of us richer for your stories, your love, your merry genius.
