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A contemporary American author of detective novels, Sue Taylor Grafton, was born in Louisville, Kentucky as the daughter of another detective novelist, C. W. Grafton. Even though her father had an influence, she has commented that her biggest influence came from author Ross MacDonald.

Sue received her bachelor's degree from University of Louisville in English literature, humanities, and fine art. Upon graduation, Sue worked as a hospital admissions clerk, cashier, and medical secretary. She wrote several novels that were not successful.

After moving into writing screenplays for television, Sue became interested in novels that carried a central theme through each title. She saw a book that alphabetized methods of murder, and immediately started writing what became her best-known works, "the alphabet novels". Each story is set around a fictional California town based on Santa Barbara. The novels are written from the perspective of a female investigator. After her G novel, Grafton was able to devote all of her time to writing her novels. She has given many refusals to those who wanted to buy her novels from which to make movies. She has no desire to work with Hollywood.