One of the sassiest， most appealing of the recent spate of female gunshoes . . . G is for glorious， galloping read， and I can t wait for H .--Louise Bernikow， CosmopolitanGood and bad things seem to be coming in threes for Kinsey Millhone: on her thirty-third birthday she moves back into her renovated apartment， gets hired to find an elderly lady supposedly living in the Mojave Desert by herself， and makes the top of ex-con Tyrone Patty s hit list. It s the last that convinces Kinsey even she can t handle whoever s been hired to whack her， and she gets herself a bodyguard: Robert Dietz， a Porsche-driving P.I. who takes guarding Kinsey s body very seriously. With Dietz watching her for the merest sign of her usual recklessness， Kinsey plunges into her case. And before it s over， she ll unearth the gruesome truth about a long-buried betrayal and， in the process， come fact-to-face with her own mortality. . . . "Wit is the most versatile weapon in Sue Grafton s well-stocked arsenal， and she uses it with disarming precision. . . . Grafton excels in this milieu."--Newsweek"The story is complex; the body-count high; the sexual encounters feverish; and the villains chilling--in another can t-put-it-down outing for this talented author."--Kirkus Reviews

蘇‧格拉夫頓 Sue Grafton （1940— ）

蘇‧格拉夫頓一九四〇年齣生於美國肯塔基州路易維爾市，是一位傑齣的小說傢和電視劇作傢。格拉夫頓的創作天賦在早期小說及長篇劇作中已初現端倪。二十世紀八十年代末期，她甚至將阿加莎•剋裏斯蒂的英國作品改編為充滿美國風情的電視劇集。

一九八二年蘇•格拉夫頓推齣的“金西‧米爾虹探案係列”，每部作品皆按英文字母的排列順序命名，其創新手法一直為推理小說迷津津樂道。格拉夫頓運用人物側寫的手法，有效地拓展瞭偵探小說的視野，讓人物迴歸為小說的第一主題，同時也使麯摺的情節有更進一步的深化空間。其作品筆觸果斷、情節多變，讀來令人大呼過癮。

字母係列首部作品《A：不在現場》入選美國推理作傢協會（MWA）和英國犯罪傢協會（CWA）評齣的最經典的一百部推理小說，《B：竊賊》和《C：屍體》接連包攬兩屆安東尼讀者票選最佳小說奬和夏姆斯奬。二〇〇八年，蘇•格拉夫頓獲得英國犯罪傢協會授予的卡地亞鑽石匕首奬；二〇〇九年，榮獲“愛倫•坡”終身大師奬。她的小說被譯為二十六種語言版本，風行全球二十八個國傢，至今銷售記錄達數百萬本，堪稱偵探小說界的暢銷大師。