Apologies for the double post. I was saddened to read the content of the spoiler (back in the day, sadly I already knew before reading your post), and annoyed that I had randomly come across it.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that Dietz gets bumped off! That was just my suggestion for a (real downer of a) way to end the series.
You are racing through these things at an astounding pace! Have you finished yet?
10 1/2 more to go. I thought I was on a slow pace 
. I started last December. I’ve been averaging about one book every 3 weeks.
Sarah Jessica Parker.
Although that may have occurred to me because Kinsey Millhone was always lunching with someone in the Grafton series, and going to lunch was probably the single most common activity on Sex and the City.
I’ve been a big Kinsey fan for a very long time. I even bought copies of all of Grafton’s Kinsey short stories before they got collected in one volume. As I recall, back then, Sue said she pictured Debra Winger in the role of Kinsey.
Of today’s actors and actresses, I can’t think of who would be a good Kinsey, but I see Richard Chamberlain as a great Henry, and either Edie McClurg or Kathy Bates as Rosie.
Also: if Sue’s family is going to go against her wishes to the point of adapting the property for television, I’d love for them to do the same to get “Z” published as well by someone working from Sue’s notes. Sometimes that ends disastrously (e.g., the “sixth Hitchhiker’s book” by Eoin Colfer - though to be fair, I didn’t care for the fifth, which Douglas Adams himself had written, either), but worst case scenario, fans of the series could just ignore it as non-canon if we don’t think it reflects Grafton’s spirit.
SJP is a bit too small and would have to wear a wig. Kinsey is 5’6" and has thick dark hair.
However, height doesn’t seem to mean much in Hollywood. Notably short characters have been played by very tall actors, like T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Peter O’Toole, or Stephen Maturin played by Paul Bettany in Master and Commander.
I can see Maura Tierney in the role.
I always had pictured young Kathleen Turner. Probably because I had read some V.I. Warshawski books around the same time as I was reading the alphabet books and they got mixed up in my head. Then she did the Warshawski movie.
As for who now? How about Natalie Zea from Justified, etc?
My bff in high school’s mother was a short, squat woman with thinning gray streaked black hair, pulled up tight and made into a stern bun right on top of her head. She had a little tiny pursed mouth and wore big gaudy black cats-eye glasses set with rhinestones. A most peculiar woman, hardly ever spoke…She is who I can picture playing ‘Rosie’. I can’t imagine IRL who would, but somehow my friend’s odd mother fits my vision…I like Maura Tierney as Kinsey, too. She is one of my favorite actresses. But she is 20 years too old for the role.
How about Mary Elizabeth Winstead? Or Dakota Johnson?
Both look good in non-glamour roles and can carry off the acting. Around the right age. Both can do the shorter hair that I picture for Kinsey, since she is always said to hack it off with a fingernail scissors. I’m not sure either would do tv now, especially with a company as low on the totem pole of quality tv like A&E.
He’s got the good looks but I wonder how he would do with the schedule of shooting of a tv series. He’s 87 years old. Maybe better to find someone in their 70s to play Henry.
For Rosie, I don’t think they even need a name actress. An unknown that looks the part and already has a thick accent would work great.
What I see actually happening, because of budget problems, is the casting choices being limited to tv actors. Probably someone we would all recognize, but who is not in demand enough to require a large paycheck. I could be wrong, but I don’t see A&E having the budget that Netflix, Amazon or HBOmax could offer.
This is a slight hijack of my own thread, but I’ve decided to make my predictions here, of course with spoilers, as a challenge to myself to predict whodunit. I’m still on Outlaw. My guess formed about 1/3 of the way through. I’m now about 2/3 of the way through and it hasn’t changed. I think the villain will turn out to be Magruder’s lawyer, Mark Bethel. Kinsey just got his CV but failed to look at it. I bet when she does it will show he attended school in Lexington, where Magruder was trying to track down someone (maybe Bethel’s illegitimate son?).
Hey, if they can turn Charlize Theron into Monster, they can plainify Emma Stone.
Outlaw is a fave of mine; after reading it I felt it was too bad that Mickey didn’t have a bigger role in the series.
BTW the KY city in the book is not Lexington but Louisville, where Sue Grafton herself grew up. Is it in Outlaw or another book where Kinsey eats the iconic Louisville Hot Brown sandwich with mewing noises of delight? I visited Louisville several years before reading the book and when I read the scene in the book I remembered enjoying the sandwich myself (without making mewing sounds)
That was my bad. You are correct about the Hot Brown. That was in Outlaw, which I’m not misremembering since I just read that part yesterday 
. The other book where she visited Louisville was Lawless.
ETA. I’ve never had a Hot Brown, and have never been to Kentucky, but it did sound good. Prior to having read that, if asked to guess, I would have said a Hot Brown is from Cleveland.
Vanessa Hudgens would be good. She is just the right age. Sarah Shahi would be great as well.
Troian Bellisario is an excellent actress and very underrated. She would be tremendous.
Maybe it’s time for me to look at Outlaw again?
The Hot Brown is named for the Brown Hotel in Louisville, so no Cleveland connection:
And Kinsey is supposed to look a lot like her mother, who was a beautiful woman. So there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be played by a beautiful actress wearing ordinary clothes and no makeup.
On O is for Outlaw. According to Sue Grafton, the plot line was taken from Macbeth.
Source:
Interesting. I wonder if my subconscious was picking up on that. Other than Alibi and the occasional book like Homicide and Lawless that aren’t whodunnits, I’m not really able to predict who actually did it. For some reason Outlaw seemed a bit more obvious, as early as 1/3 of the way through the book.
I’m bumping this thread as a general Grafton thread since I just finished Wasted and am about 20% of the way through X. I really liked Wasted, in part because she brought back or at least made mention of several recurring characters (including that infamous bird sanctuary finally making a real appearance ). I’m also enjoying X so far for the same reasons**. Looking back, there were some that weren’t all that memorable, but only two real clunkers, Evidence and Killer, with the latter not making much sense, leaving too many loose ends, and having a lot of unlikable characters. I’m kind of sad to be reaching the end of the series, but she did finish off on a strong note, with Wasted being my second favorite after Ricochet, and X so far shaping up to be a really good one.
** Even though he’s only appeared posthumously (so far), Morley Shine is one of my favorite recurring characters. From his first appearance in Innocent, I pictured him as a somewhat rumpled looking Jerry Orbach / Lennie Briscoe.
I’ve read or listened-to most of the Kinsey Millhone novels. I always pictured her as kinda average looking, whatever that is, and a little tomboyish. Is “tomboy” sexist these days? Regardless I think you know what I mean. Noomi Rapace maybe.