# Alphabet ends at Y: RIP Sue Grafton **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 29, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540 "2017-12-29T20:53:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/41 "2018-01-01T16:03:27Z")
Personally, I think that an author’s wishes ought to be respected on whether their series continue. If an author tells his family to finish a series, or picks out a successor, that’s fine, it’s their call. But if, as here, an author says that they don’t want anyone else meddling with their creations, well, that’s their call, too. Obviously there’s no legal obligation for her heirs to respect her wishes, and I don’t think there should be, but then, there are a lot of things heirs do out of respect for the dead that aren’t legally obligated. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/42 "2018-01-02T01:52:18Z")
I have mixed feelings - her wishes, etc. All of her readers got to read the books that were paid for. On the other hand, people who committed to reading the series made her wealthy and would like to see how the story ends. A free-on-the-web outline would be a good compromise. I have not read them but my wife has. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/43 "2018-01-02T02:14:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, I think that an author’s wishes ought to be respected on whether their series continue. If an author tells his family to finish a series, or picks out a successor, that’s fine, it’s their call. But if, as here, an author says that they don’t want anyone else meddling with their creations, well, that’s their call, too. **Obviously there’s no legal obligation for her heirs to respect her wishes** , and I don’t think there should be, but then, there are a lot of things heirs do out of respect for the dead that aren’t legally obligated. This is why writers need literary executors, and I’ll bet she had one. But it sounds like her family was on board in any case. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/44 "2018-01-02T02:53:01Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > So, [comic book time](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComicBookTime) was not in effect? Even though _Y is for Yesterday_ was published in 2017, the story is definitely set nearly 30 years ago? Yes. It was a major factor in development of the stories. As **cmkeller** says, the entire series A-Y covers only 7-8 years. Many books literally start within a few days of when the last one ends. Everything is based on 1980’s conditions - i.e. no Internet or cell phones. Kinsey is famous for keeping all her case notes on index cards (I saw an online tribute that was an image of a pile of index cards). This is why a wrap-up would have been less about an end to Kinsey or her career, and more about her transitioning out of this period in her life. She is not so much a comic book character as a real person who goes through the normal ups, downs and personal growth of a person in her 30’s. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/45 "2018-01-02T03:14:27Z")
I hope there is no end offered to the series. And I think the reason Grafton had difficulty writing Z, in addition to the fact that she was ill and undergoing treatment, was that she didn’t want it to end either. Leave it alone. Kinsey is still at work, Henry is still baking bread, Rosie is still making incomprehensible, inedible Hungarian dishes. Peace. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/46 "2018-01-02T14:19:05Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > This thread reminded me that I never finished the Mathew Hope series. > > I was getting used paperbacks from a local place. I’ll check Amazon and see which books I missed. > > I recall they were very good. EVERYTHING Ed McBain and his counterpart Evan Hunter wrote was at least very good. Downtown, which is one of McBain’s few books not part of a series, is absolutely wonderful, highly recommended, and set at Christmas time in NYC. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/47 "2018-01-02T17:34:33Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > EVERYTHING Ed McBain and his counterpart Evan Hunter wrote was at least very good. Well, yes, most everything. He was a great in the field. But his early 87th Precinct books up through the 70s were the best. After then he either caught the disease or was inflicted with it by his publishers of turning his taut 60,000 word thrillers into 120,000 word bulks with the same amount of plot. It happened to almost every genre writer who came out of the 50s-60s paperback scene. Dick Francis. Len Deighton. Donald Westlake. Gavin Lyall. (Some sf writers, too.) Publishers learned that audiences would pay the rapidly rising cost of books if they were fatter, so they appeared to get more for their money. It worked. Their books got onto bestsellers lists, so there was no incentive to do anything else. But quality took a hit. I’m not sure what happened to the Matthew Hope series. I don’t think I ever finished it, and I’m pretty sure (it’s been almost three decades) the reason was that they were the same book over and over, unlike the 87th Precinct which I didn’t give up on until Fat Ollie became a lead. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/48 "2018-01-04T21:42:13Z")
I loved Ed McBain’s books. I wonder how much they influenced NYPD Blue. I was on a ‘live chat’ years ago with Ed McBain and I asked him wtf happened with the Deaf Man in one of his books (the Deaf Man escaped, almost supernaturally.) Mr. McB said, ‘Oh, I forgot all about him, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll show up again in the future’ - and he did. Ed McBain and Evan Hunter were one and the same, you know. ---
**Author:** ![bobsmom101](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobsmom101/32/2867_2.png) [@bobsmom101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobsmom101)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/49 "2018-01-05T23:55:38Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > Sue Grafton, age 77, writer of the Kinsey Milhone series (A Is for Alibi etc.). She was a great person, a role model for women writing mysteries with female protagonists, and a great mentor to a lot of developing writers. I was really sad to hear this even though nobody lives forever. I had hoped she would get to the end of the alphabet, but not quite. I love this series. My fantasy was that in “Z” Kinsey would investigate, solve, and avenge Dietz’s murder. Because, of course, his name ends in Z. Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540/50 "2018-01-06T16:56:43Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > EVERYTHING Ed McBain and his counterpart Evan Hunter wrote was at least very good. Any time I start thinking, “Hey, I’m getting good at this writing stuff,” I read a paragraph – almost any paragraph – of McBain and it shifts to, “not there yet.” OTOH I’m reminded of a scene in _Thirty-something_ where Michael, the writer, is moaning about how he’ll never be the next Hemingway whereupon Elliot, the artist, said, “Are you kiddin’ me? _Hemingway_ couldn’t be Hemingway – he died trying.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alphabet-ends-at-y-rip-sue-grafton/805540.md?page=2)