SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. (CelebrityAccess) Sue Grafton, 77, known for detective novels that spanned the alphabet, died in Santa Barbara, Calif., Dec. 28 after a battle with cancer.
Grafton’s daughter Jamie Clark posted the announcement on the author’s Facebook page and website.
Grafton was known for her series of books that began in 1982 with “A Is For Alibi” and recently published “Y Is For Yesterday.” Her husband, Steven F. Humphrey, told the New York Times that she her illness prevented her from making progress on the final book.
“She always said the last book would be ‘Z Is For Zero,’” Humphrey told the paper. “She’d been saying that for 30 years.”
Grafton began writing novels in the ’60s, with her first novel, “Keziah Dane” published in 1967 followed by “The Lolly-Madonna War” in 1969, which was converted into a screenplay and released as a movie in 1973. She created a show called “Nurse” that ran for two seasons on CBS in the ’80s.
Jamie Clark noted in her tribute that “the alphabet now ends with Y.”
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