X (Kinsey Millhone Series #24)

After 23 novels, Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet” series, featuring scrappy California private investigator Kinsey Millhone, is showing no signs of age. Instead, Grafton’s latest, X—which dispenses with her usual “… is for” title formula for the simple reason that she couldn’t make it work—is one of the most anticipated mysteries of the year. This is thanks not only to Grafton’s skill as a […]

It’s a curious thing that can happen in ongoing book series: characters often seem to exist in a strange universe where nothing changes and no one ages. Over the course of dozens of novels and decades of real time, they remain unchanged and eternal. It’s even more uncanny when the writer passes away and someone new takes […]

Writing fiction is a lot like playing chess: very few people actually understand how it’s done, and most seem to think it involves randomly moving things around and shouting out words (checkmate!). There are a finite number of moves, pieces, openings, and endgames, and the trick isn’t to invent a whole new way of playing, but […]