Kinsey Millhone's grit is tested to its utmost as the private detective unearth's the gruesome truth about a long buried betrayal and in the process comes face-to-face with the grisly fact of her own mortality.

Thirty-four years ago, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the annual Fourth of July fireworks. She was never seen again. For the not-quite-seven-year-old daughter Daisy she left behind, Violet's absence has never been explained or forgotten. Now, thirty-four years later, she wants the solace of closure.

It was the silly season and a Monday at that, and Kinsey Millhone was bogged down in a preliminary report on a fire claim. Something was nagging at her, but she couldn't pin it. The last thing she needed in the morning mail was a letter from her bank recording an erroneous $5,000 deposit in her account. Kinsey had never believed in Santa Claus and she wasn't about to change her mind now. Resigning herself to a morning of frustration, she phoned the...

Loonie Kingman is in a bind. He's smack in the middle of assembling a civil suit, and the private investigator who was doing his pretrail legwork has just dropped dead of a heart attack. In a matter of weeks the court's statue of limitations will put paid to his case. Five years ago David Barney walked when a jury acquitted him of the murder of his rich wife, Isabelle. Now Kingman, acting as attorney for the dead woman's ex-husband and their child...

A wealthy woman needs to find her sister to settle a will. It looks routine ... boring. Still, business is slow and even a private investigator has bills to pay, so Kinsey Millhone takes the case. But this is not routine and the deeper Kinsey digs the trickier things get. The client tries to call Kinsey off, an accusing husband surfaces and a double murder turns the case sinister. Kinsey feels adrift in a fog of distortion, where nothing -- except...

"Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only two letters left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment. X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss. X: The shortest entry in Webster's Unabridged. Derived from Greek and Latin and commonly found in science, medicine, and religion. The most graphically dramatic...

When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. Plenty of people had reason to want him dead. But the police thought his wife Nikki--with motive, access and opportunity--was the #1 suspect. The jury thought so too. Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki hires Kinsey Millhone, a gutsy P.I., to find the read killer. The trail is cold but Kinsey finds a lead. It brings her face-to-face with the murderer. This is the first in the popular...