Spell M for Murder

G is for “guilty pleasure” where the works of Sue Grafton are concerned. We bet that even literary snobs whose bookcases are stuffed with Nietzsche and Nabokov occasionally draw the blinds and furtively feast on Grafton’s spellbinding, genre-bending “Alphabet” series of suspense thrillers starring the tough but vulnerable private eye Kinsey Millhone. (P.S. We only know this stuff ’cause somebody told us. Now, back to Thus Spake Zarathustra.) Mostly thanks to the “Alphabets,” which started with 1982’s A Is for Alibi, Grafton has become the 800-pound gorilla of mystery fiction. She’s just finished her 20th “Alphabet,” T Is for Trespass, and signs the tome at the Poisoned Pen.
Fri., Dec. 7, 5 p.m., 2007