A woman wrongly convicted of murdering her husband hires private detective Kinsey Millhone to find the real killer.
Kinsey Millhone Series
This series follows a resourceful private investigator navigating the mysteries of a California coastal town. Each case delves into complex human relationships and hidden motives, offering a compelling blend of suspense and character-driven narrative. Readers are drawn to the sharp wit and unwavering determination of the protagonist as she unravels intricate puzzles. It's a beloved collection for those who enjoy classic detective work with a distinct, independent female lead.






Recommended Reading Order
B is for burglar
- 384 pages
- 14 hours of reading
The second book in the critically acclaimed Kinsey Millhone series
C is for corpse
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
"Bobby Callahan was only 20 when an accident left him disfigured for life. The doctors patched up his body but they couldn't fix his mind. Huge chunks of his memory were lost but he knew someone had tried to kill him and that the "accident" was deliberate. He knew he had the key to something that made him dangerous to the murderer but he didn't know what. No one believed him. . .so he hired Kinsey Millhone. Three days later Bobby was dead. But Kinsey never welshed on a deal. She'd been hired to stop a killing, now she'd find the killer instead."--Amazon.com.
Female, age 32, self-employed and wiser than she used to be. For Kinsey Millhone, Private Investigator, only one thing stays the same. When a client sits down in the chair across the desk, she never knows what's going to happen next. This is the fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone series.
E is for evidence
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I cherish my unmarried state. I’m female, twice divorced, no kids and no close family ties. I’m perfectly content to do what I do . . . It was two days after Christmas when Kinsey Millhone received the bank slip showing a credit for five thousand dollars. The account number was correct but Kinsey hadn’t made the deposit. Then came the phone call and suddenly everything became clear. The frame-up was working and Kinsey was trapped . . .
F is for Fugitive
- 272 pages
- 10 hours of reading
"It was an old man's dying wish. To clear his son's name and reunite his family. But Bailey Fowler had been missing for 16 years and there was more than one person in Floral Beach who didn't want him found. Until the cops turn him up - by accident. And suddenly murder is the hottest game in town all over again. Kinsey Millhone was summoned for the fairy tale ending ... ." -- back cover.
The divorced ex-cop, Kinsey Millhone, turns 33, is hired to bring a mother back from the desert, and makes a top slot on Tyrone Patty's hit list, all on the same day.
2 cassettes / 3 hours Read by Judy Kaye Kinsey Millhone, the irreverent, wise-cracking P.I. with a style reminiscent of Philip Marlowe, is back in a high-stakes adventure. His name was Parnell Perkins and until shortly after midnight, he'd been a claims adjuster for California Fidelity. Then someone had come along and ended his career . . . permanently. To the cops, his death looked like a robber gone sour; to Kinsey Millhone, it looked strangely suspicious. Particularly when Bibianna Diaz's name surfaced in one of Perkins' files. It seems she had pulled an insurance scam, with California Fidelity as her mark. Now, Kinsey was after her. But so, too, was her spurned suitor, Raymond Maldonado. he had a rap sheet as long as his arm and an inability to take no for an answer. Could Kinsey get to Bibianna first and solve the mystery of Perkins' murder? Or would she find that once you crossed Raymond Maldonado, you didn't live to tell the tape?
I Is for Innocent: A Kinsey Millhone Novel
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
When David Barney was acquitted in the shooting death of his wife, Isabelle, a good many thought that justice had not been served -- including Kenneth Voight, Isabelle's former husband. Now, five years later, Voight is the plaintiff in a civil suit in which Barney stands accused of Isabelle's wrongful death. The stakes are high -- Isabelle's estate is worth millions -- but time is running short: the statute of limitations will cut Voight off in only a matter of weeks. Enter sexy, savvy ex-cop-turned-P.I. Kinsey Millhone, brought in by Voight to gather the necessary damning evidence. It doesn't take long, however, for Kinsey to find that while a lot of people hate David Barney, a lot more hated Isabelle. Suddenly a simple civil case becomes a deadly hunt for someone who once got away with murder -- and may again ..
The alphabet mysteries continue with another suspicious case for private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
When Kinsey Millhone answers her office door late one night, she lets in more darkness than she realizes. Janice Kepler is a grieving mother who can't let the death of her beautiful daughter Lorna alone. The police agree that Lorna was murdered, but a suspect was never apprehended and the trail is now ten months cold. Kinsey pieces together Lorna's young life: a dull day job a the local water treatment plant spiced by sidelines in prostitution and pornography. She tangles with Lorna's friends: a local late-night DJ; a sweet, funny teenaged hooker; Lorna's sloppy landlord and his exotic wife. But to find out which one, if any, turned killer, Kinsey will have to inhabit a netherworld from which she may never return.
PI Kinsey Millhone of California goes looking for the loot of a $500,000 robbery, an assignment filled with danger as one of the robbers is a psychopath. By the author of "K" Is for Killer
M Is For Malice
- 300 pages
- 11 hours of reading
'M' is for malice...and malice kills. 'M' is for money. Lots of it. 'M' is for Malek Construction, the $40 million company that grew out of modest soil to become one of the big three in California and which, uniquely, remains in family hands. 'M' is for the Malek family: four sons now nearing middle age who stand to inherit a fortune - four men with very different outlooks, temperaments and needs, linked only by blood and money. Eighteen years ago, one of them - angry, troubled and in trouble - went missing. 'M' is for Millhone, hired to trace that missing black sheep brother. 'M' is for memories, none of them happy. The bitter memories of an embattled family. Though Millhone suceeds in her search, this prodigal son will find no welcome at his family's table. And, in brutal consequence, 'M' is for murder...
N is for noose
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Kinsey Millhone should have turned the car back. In the direction of home. Instead, she was about to put herself in the gravest jeopardy of her career.Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office for years--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townsfolk were saddened but not surprised. Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, smoked too much, and exercised too little. That plus an appetite for junk food made him a poster boy for an American Heart Association campaign.Newquist's widow didn't doubt the coroner's report. But what Selma couldn't accept was not knowing what had bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night, that had him brooding constantly? Selma wanted to find out what it was that had so bedeviled her husband.The case was vague and hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. Kinsey set up shop in Nota Lake where she found that looking for that needle can draw blood. Very likely, her own. "N Is for Noose" is a novel in which Kinsey Millhone becomes the target and an entire town seems in for the kill.
O Is For Outlaw
- 354 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Through fourteen books, fans have been fed short rations when it comes to Kinsey Millhone's past, a morsel here, a dollop there. We know of Aunt Gin who raised her, the second husband who left her, and the long-lost family up the California coast. But husband number one was only a blip on the screen until now.Kinsey gets a call on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. Last week he bought a stack of boxes. They had stuff in them—Kinsey stuff. For thirty bucks, he'll sell her the lot. She has never been one for personal possessions, but curiosity wins out and she hands over a twenty. Kinsey may be curious but she loves to bargain! What she finds amid childhood memorabilia is an old undelivered letter.It will force her to reexamine her beliefs about the breakup of her first marriage, about the honor of Mickey, that first husband, and about an old unsolved murder. It will put her life in the gravest peril. "O Is for Outlaw" is Kinsey Millhone's fifteenth adventure into the dark side of human nature.
P is for peril
- 513 pages
- 18 hours of reading
It is now nine weeks since Dr Dowan Purcell vanished without trace. The sixty-nine-year-old doctor had said goodnight to his colleagues at the Pacific Meadows nursing home, had climbed into his car and driven away - never to be seen again. His embittered first wife Fiona is convinced he is still alive. His second wife, Crystal - a former stripper forty years his junior - is just as sure he is dead. Enter private investigator Kinsey Malone, hired by Fiona to find out just what has happened to the man they loved. Enter also Tommy Hevener, an attractive flame-haired twenty-something who has set his romantic sights on Kinsey. And Tommy is a man with a very interesting past ... 'Grafton is a delight to read, her books being highly literatre, with believable plots and three-dimensionally drawn characters'" Irish Times."
Q is for Quarry
- 368 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Eighteen years after the body of an unidentified young woman is discovered in a quarry off California's Highway 1, two police detectives nearing retirement enlist Kinsey Millhone's aid to help identify the long-ago murder victim.
R is for ricochet
- 300 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Reba Lafferty was a daughter of privilege, the only child of an adoring father. Nord Lafferty was already in his fifties when Reba was born, and he could deny her nothing. Over the years, he quietly settled her many scrapes with the law, but he wasn't there for her when she was convicted of embezzlement and sent to the California Institution for Women. Now, at thirty-two, she is about to be paroled, having served twenty-two months of a four-year sentence. Nord Lafferty wants to be sure she stays straight, stays at home and away from the drugs, the booze, the gamblers." "It seems a straightforward assignment for Kinsey: babysit Reba until she settles in, make sure she follows all the rules of her parole. Maybe all of a week's work. Nothing untoward - the woman seems remorseful and friendly. And the money is good." But life is never that simple, and Reba is out of prison less than twenty-four hours when one of her old crowd comes circling round.
S is for silence
- 562 pages
- 20 hours of reading
"Thirty-four years after Violet Sullivans unexplained disappearance, Daisy - the not-quite-seven-year-old daughter she left behind - seeks the solace of closure and enlists the assistance of private detective Kinsey Millhone to help her find the truth." -- back cover.
T is for Trespass
- 500 pages
- 18 hours of reading
When her elderly neighbour Gus has an accident, Kinsey Millhone is relieved when his niece organises a nurse for him. Verifying a background check on Solana Rojas doesn't turn up anything suspicious. But Kinsey's not convinced - especially when Gus seems to be getting worse under his nurse's tender care.
The alphabet mysteries continue with a reopened case for private investigator Kinsey Millhone.
V is for Vengeance Las Vegas, 1986. A young college graduate is murdered when he is unable to pay back a loan. Two years later private investigator Kinsey Millhone finds herself assisting to apprehend a shoplifter - Audrey Vance - in a shopping centre. Events take a much darker turn when her body is discovered beneath the Cold Spring Bridge, a local suicide spot. Full description
"Two dead bodies changed the course of my life that fall" October 1988 Santa Teresa California narrates PI Kinsey Milhone 38. One is shady PI Pete Wolinsky, shot and robbed. Second is homeless alcoholic Terrence Dace from kidney and liver failure. He rejected children, bequeathed fortune to Kinsey. Pete's gun shows up in Kinsey's car, dropped by Felix, killed after he retrieved friend Dace's stolen stuff.
X
- 529 pages
- 19 hours of reading
“An inventive plot and incisive character studies elevate MWA Grand Master Grafton’s twenty-fourth Kinsey Millhone novel...This superior outing will remind readers why this much-loved series will be missed as the end of the alphabet approaches.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss... Perhaps Sue Grafton’s darkest and most chilling novel, X features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this deadly sociopath. The test is whether private investigator Kinsey Millhone can prove her case against him—before she becomes his next victim.
The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate—and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns state’s evidence and two of his peers are convicted. But the ringleader escapes without a trace. Now, it’s 1989 and one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. Moody, unrepentant, and angry, he is a virtual prisoner of his ever-watchful parents—until a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand. That’s when the McCabes call Kinsey Millhone for help. As she is drawn into their family drama, she keeps a watchful eye on Fritz. But he’s not the only one being haunted by the past. A vicious sociopath with a grudge against Millhone may be leaving traces of himself for her to find…
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Kniha obsahuje tři případy : 1. A jako Alibi - přeložila Eva Klimentová. 2. B jako běs - přeložila Stanislava Pošustová. 3. C jako corpus delicti - přeložila Ivana Doležalová. Doslov „Ostrá žena s něžným srdcem“ napsala Eva Klimentová. Vydání první
gutes Buch - leicht randgegilbt aber sauber - Name eingeschrieben - Ausgabe 1991 - schneller Versand
O is for Outlaw and P is for Peril
- 513 pages
- 18 hours of reading
A double dose of Sue Grafton and a realtreat. Two absolutely cracking books tokeep you reading until all hours. The onlydownside is you get to the end and wantmore. Fortunately there is more.
Kinsey y yo
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Más de tres décadas después de que se publicara la primera novela protagonizada por Kinsey Millhone, cuando el Alfabeto del Crimen ha alcanzado un clamoroso éxito internacional, la investigadora privada debe resolver nueve casos. Impregnados por la vigorosa voz narrativa, el afiladísimo ingenio y las irreverentes observaciones que han cautivado a los lectores desde A de adulterio, estos relatos nos recuerdan el cambio sísmico que la irrupción de Millhone provocó en la novela policiaca: las mujeres dejaron de ser meras comparsas para convertirse en protagonistas con carácter y opiniones propias. Como colofón, trece breves relatos protagonizados por Kit Blue, una versión más joven de la propia Sue Grafton, en los que la escritora encara su pasado con emotividad: el resultado es un viaje desde su infancia en el seno de una familia problemática, marcada por el alcoholismo de la madre o la falta de supervisión durante la niñez de la propia Sue, en un ejercicio autobiográfico que pocos autores acometen.
The collection features stories that intertwine the beloved series detective Kinsey Millhone with personal insights from the author. It offers readers a unique blend of mystery and self-reflection, showcasing the author's signature style while providing deeper context into her creative process and character development.
In 1982, Sue Grafton introduced us to private investigator Kinsey Millhone and the Alphabet series. Now Kinsey is an established international icon and Sue, a number-one bestselling author. To mark this achievement, Sue has written short stories that reveal Kinsey's origins and Sue's past.
Kinsey a já : Uzavřený kruh a jiné povídky
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Každá z devíti povídek v úvodu knihy je klenotem detektivní fikce. Hrdinka Kinsey, která se objevila v převratné vlně detektivního románu, přestala být pouze oddanou parťačkou drsných detektivů a začala vyslovovat vlastní názory a postřehy. Její výmluvnost a ostrovtip si čtenáři zamilovali již od první knihy. Druhá část souboru, obsahující třináct povídek, byla napsána během deseti let po matčině smrti a představuje Kit Blueovou, mladší alter ego autorky. Tyto temné příběhy nesou spodní proud zármutku a tiché bolesti, reflektující rodinné ztráty a cestu od vzteku k odpuštění a lásce. Autorka se v minulosti zmínila o alkoholismu svých rodičů, což ovlivnilo její dětství a pocit volnosti, ale i citovou rozháranost. Sue Graftonová si hlídá své soukromí a její nynější otevřenost naznačuje vyrovnání se s minulostí. Přesto cítí rozpaky ohledně sdílení svého života, touží po možnosti přepsat svou minulost a odstranit slabá místa. Uvědomuje si, že zakrývání nepříjemností může vést k ztrátě dobrých vzpomínek. Minulost je komplexní a zkušenosti, které získala, měly svou cenu, s níž se ztotožňuje každý, kdo se odvážil ohlédnout za svým životem.
A Is for Alibi & B Is for Burglar
- 640 pages
- 23 hours of reading
A Is for Alibi & B Is for Burglar collects the first two novels in the #1 New York Times bestselling Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton... In A is for Alibi, tough-talking private investigator Kinsey Millhone has set up a modest detective agency in a quiet corner of Santa Teresa, California. A twice-divorced loner with few personal attachments, she's got a soft spot for lost causes. That's why she draws clients like Nikki Fife. Nikki is out on parole after serving time for allegedly killing her husband, and needs Kinsey's help to find the real killer. But clearing Nikki's name won't be easy.... In B is for Burglar, Kinsey is reluctant to take on the case of locating Beverly Danziger's sister Elaine. It's a small matter that Beverly should be able to handle herself. So why is she enlisting Kinsey's services? And if there's something she's learned in her line of work, it's to always follow your instincts...























