Author Sue Grafton dies, aged 77

Sue Grafton: 1940 – 2017

Jeremy Trevathan, Publisher of our Fiction list, says: "Sue Grafton was an amazing author we’ve had the privilege to publish for over 20 years and whose influence on the international crime fiction genre was marked by being awarded a Diamond Dagger by the CWA in the UK. She was a giant in her field who will be sorely missed by her many fans across the world.

"It’s so sad that she did not manage to get to the final letter of the alphabet in her iconic Kinsey Millhone alphabet series of novels."

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Maria Rejt, publisher at Mantle, added: "Sue Grafton wrote some of the most perfect and accomplished mystery novels in a genre not short of soaring talents. Choose a letter, any letter, in her alphabet series and you are instantly in the company of a new friend: Kinsey Millhone. Kinsey marched to her own drum, but however dark her journey she would always - and fearlessly - lead you back into the light. 

"As an author Sue embodied professionalism. She cared about her readers first and last. And as a person Sue put paid to that old adage: never meet your heroes. She was gentle, beautiful, and kind, with exquisite manners and a piercing sense of humour, unfailingly supportive to new authors and disarmingly modest about her own success.

"It is so very sad to realise that her final masterpiece, Z is for Zero, will be denied us, that Kinsey’s final sign-off will remain unknown, but much as it is a life cruelly interrupted it is all the more one to celebrate and cherish.

"Pan Macmillan published Sue’s first Kinsey Millhone novel in 1982 in the UK and her last in 2017. It has been an extraordinary privilege throughout."

The news was announced on Facebook from Sue's daughter, Jamie. The full statement can be found below:

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