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Details
GRAFTON, Sue (b. 1940). “A” is for Alibi. A Kinsey Millhouse Mystery. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982. 8°. Original gray cloth, dust jacket. Numerous letters and drawings tipped on to front and rear flyleaves and paste downs.
FIRST EDITION. Extensively annotated throughout. Before there was DCI Jane Tennison, before there was even Dr. Kay Scarpetta, there was Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, “an ex-cop who likes her work and works alone.” The world of detective fiction would never again be a boys only affair. It was time for hommes fatales: “Kinsey’s relationship with Charlie Scorsini is the moral and spiritual equivalent of the hard-boiled private eye’s sexual connection to the femme fatale,” she writes in her annotations. “She knows better and chides herself later for getting involved with him. Nearly gets her killed.” Grafton enjoyed revisiting this work. When Millhone describes one character as “looking a bit like Arlette might if she decided to cross-dress,” she writes in the margin: “Love this! I know it sounds egotistical but it’s the truth…” When the action moves to Las Vegas she allows how she “loves the images of cheap motels.” She shares her insights about the “less-is-more” approach to fiction writing: “did some research on desert life. Again, it’s the small touches that infuse the narrative with detailed images…better than the generic.” She even tips in a photocopy of the 1 August 1980 letter from her editor, Marian Wood, informing her that the publisher had just bought the novel: “I am delighted. I am also eager for the full manuscript and eager as well to meet you…”
FIRST EDITION. Extensively annotated throughout. Before there was DCI Jane Tennison, before there was even Dr. Kay Scarpetta, there was Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, “an ex-cop who likes her work and works alone.” The world of detective fiction would never again be a boys only affair. It was time for hommes fatales: “Kinsey’s relationship with Charlie Scorsini is the moral and spiritual equivalent of the hard-boiled private eye’s sexual connection to the femme fatale,” she writes in her annotations. “She knows better and chides herself later for getting involved with him. Nearly gets her killed.” Grafton enjoyed revisiting this work. When Millhone describes one character as “looking a bit like Arlette might if she decided to cross-dress,” she writes in the margin: “Love this! I know it sounds egotistical but it’s the truth…” When the action moves to Las Vegas she allows how she “loves the images of cheap motels.” She shares her insights about the “less-is-more” approach to fiction writing: “did some research on desert life. Again, it’s the small touches that infuse the narrative with detailed images…better than the generic.” She even tips in a photocopy of the 1 August 1980 letter from her editor, Marian Wood, informing her that the publisher had just bought the novel: “I am delighted. I am also eager for the full manuscript and eager as well to meet you…”
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This lot is offered without reserve.