I thought about the current contamination of beaches, raw sewage spilling into oceans and streams, the hole in the ozone, forests being stripped, the toxic-waste dumps, the merry plunder of mankind added to the drought and the famine that nature dishes up annually as a matter of course. It's hard to know what's actually going to get us first. Sometimes I think we should just blow the whole planet and get it over with. It's the suspense that's killing me.

She had long been fascinated by mysteries that had related titles including those by John D. "
In 2008 Grafton was awarded the Cartier Dagger by the British Crime Writers' Association honoring a lifetime's achievement in the field. He does eventually find a love interest in a nurse who replies with "G Is For Gumshoe" when he asks if Sue Grafton's reading a Sue Grafton novel.

Grafton Sue Grafton has said the strongest influence on her crime novels is author Ross Macdonald. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' ("A" Is for Alibi etc. ) featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa California.