Anyway, I just learned that Sue Grafton has died, and that bums me out. For a while there, starting in high school and extending for a number of years thereafter, I read a lot of mystery novels, in large part because my mother was (and is) into them big-time, so there were a lot of them around.

Our tastes in these matters do not entirely overlap—she never cottoned to Raymond Chandler or the various Continental European authors I got heavily into in translation (Simenon, Baantjer, Henning Mankell, and so on), while I never developed much of a fondness for the various folksy sorta-Murder, She Wrote-esque series she's got stacks and stacks of—but there were a few points of significant overlap. One was the classic British parlor mystery-slash-"Inspector Soandso of the Yard" types (Christie, P.D. James, et al.); another was the late John D. MacDonald (creator of Travis McGee, also author of The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything); and a third was Sue Grafton's A is for Alibi series. I drifted out of sync around M, I think—missed one and never got caught back up—but I've kept buying them for Mom as they came out. Y is for Yesterday dropped in August.

So that's a bummer.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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Aw, crud. I remember reading that she was working on Z, and that it was intended to wrap up Kinsey's story, but I was thinking that she'd just start a new series a few years down the line, seventy-something not being that old for an author.

I was figuring on reading the entire alphabet once Z is for Zero came out.

Peter Eng
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Insert humorous comment here.

On the one hand, not entirely a bad idea for that very reason. On the other hand, the sensation of, "Oh, god, the obits section has been active again" sort of comes to mind...

As for the author, and the series, I hadn't heard of it...and now I'm uncertain. On the one hand, I want to check it out. On the other, while I am fairly certain that they're more or less stand-alone?(presume as much, at least) There'll still be that nagging point at the back of my head that "it isn't complete and now it won't be", as it were.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"