SOURCE: Walton, Priscilla L. “‘E’ Is for En/Gendering Readings: Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone.” In Women Times Three: Writers, Detectives, Readers, edited by Kathleen Gregory Klein, pp. 101-15. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Walton analyzes the notion of feminist empowerment in Grafton's detective novels.

Sue Grafton launched her alphabetized detective series in 1982, with the publication of “A” Is for Alibi. The author of eleven Kinsey Millhone novels to date, she has produced approximately one book a year since 1982, each of which has enjoyed an enormous popularity. Grafton's success with mystery fiction is such that she is often hailed as an innovator of the Tough Gal Private Eye, and lauded as a re-vis(ion)er of crime writing. Her efforts (along with those of her “sisters in crime,” Sara Paretsky and Marcia Muller) to open the conventionally sexist and exclusive hard-boiled...