Okay, let's get into it. So I want you to picture
this. It's 1982. You walk into a bookstore, one
of those old B. Dalton or Walden Books places.
Oh, I remember those. The smell of paper. Exactly.
And you're in the mystery section. You see all
the usual stuff, you know, the hard -boiled guys
in trench coats on the covers, Agatha Christie
reprints. But then you see this one hardcover,
and the title is just, it's stark, it's simple,
and it's so ambitious. A is for alibi. And you're
just standing there. You have no idea what you're
looking at. None. You don't know that you're
looking at the first brick in a literary monument
that is going to take decades to build. A monument
built on, well, a foundation of rage, a lot of
poison, and a very specific kind of California
sunshine. It really is a landmark. It is. You
know, when we look at mystery novels today, we
totally take for granted that there are these
confident, complex female detectives. They're
everywhere. It's a staple of the genre now. 100%.
But back in 1982... uh that landscape looked
very very different this book it didn't just
kick off a series it introduced us to kinsey
milhone a character who i think really did redefine
the female detective trope oh she absolutely
did and honestly just the title itself starting
with a it implies this promise doesn't it it's
just audacious it's so audacious it's saying
hey I'm not just writing one book. I'm starting
a project that's going to take me the rest of
my life. It is. It's a huge commitment right
out of the gate. It suggests an order, a sequence.
It's telling the reader, stick with me. We've
got a long, long way to go. And, you know, tragically,
she did. She got all the way to Y before she
passed away. Yeah. But today we're going all
the way back to the beginning. We're going to
look at A. The first step. So our mission for
this deep dive is to unpack everything about
this debut. We've got our sources and we're mainly
leaning on the comprehensive Wikipedia entry
for the novel. It gives us the plot, the publication
history, all the critical analysis. It's a map
for our journey. Yeah. But we're going to go
deeper than just a summary. We're going to explore
the really intricate and frankly kind of messy
plot. We'll look at the critical reception, which,
spoiler alert, wasn't exactly a standing ovation
at first. Which is so fascinating to look back
on now, isn't it? Considering the legacy. It's
wild. And maybe the most interesting part, we're
going to dig into the surprisingly dark origin
story of this book. Because, and I didn't know
this until I started prepping. This book wasn't
just born out of wanting to write a good mystery.
It was born out of pure rage. That's a very polite
way to put it. It was born out of a specific,
very targeted visceral anger. OK, so let's just
dive right into that. The origin story, I guess
you could call it A is for anger. Oh, A is definitely
for anger in this case. So the source material
points out this really crucial piece of context.
When Sue Grafton was writing A is for alibi,
she wasn't, you know, sitting in some cozy cottage,
sipping tea and dreaming up puzzles. She was
going through a divorce. And it was not an amicable
let's stay friends kind of divorce. It was a
six year custody battle. I mean, it was a war.
The quote in the source is. It's just incredible.
She admitted that she would, and I'm quoting
here, lie in bed at night thinking of ways to
kill him, her husband. That is intense. It's
so visceral. Right. But think about the psychology
of that. You're feeling powerless. You're in
this legal system that's just grinding you down.
You are so angry, but you're a civilized person,
so you can't act on that anger in the real world.
So what do you do? You write a book where someone
gets away with it. Or at least tries to. Exactly.
It's a classic case of sublimation. You take
this intense real -world emotion, this rage,
and you channel it. You pour it into fiction.
She was very open about the fact that the story
came directly from these fantasies. So instead
of actually committing a crime, she created this
whole universe where she could solve them. Or,
in a way, commit them on paper and get away with
it. It gives a whole new meaning to that old
advice, write what you know. She knew exactly
what it felt like to want someone dead. And it
adds this layer of grit to the story that just
feels so authentic. When Kinsey Mahone, the main
character, is talking about cynical relationships
or the dark side of people, the messiness of
divorce, that's not just a writer trying to sound
noir. That's Sue Grafton processing her own reality.
It's basically therapy, but with a page count.
So there's this shadow of the ex -husband, but
there's another man. who had a massive influence
on this book but in a totally different way we
have to talk about her father chip grafton yeah
and this is the really heartbreaking part of
the whole origin story if the ex -husband provided
the let's say the fuel for the plot Her father
provided the map for the career. The book is
dedicated to him. It is. The dedication says,
who set me on this path? And he wasn't just,
you know, a dad who happened to like books. He
was in the game himself, right? Oh, yeah, he
was in it. Chip Grafton was a municipal bond
attorney in Kentucky during the day, which sounds
incredibly dry. Very dry. But by night, he was
a crime novelist. He had a whole secondary career
writing mysteries. And he actually won some minor
acclaim for four novels he wrote. So Sue Grafton
grew up watching. this happen she saw the craft
of mystery writing being practiced in her own
home she saw that you could have a day job and
still create these incredible worlds i mean talk
about following in your father's footsteps it
must have been such a huge way for them to connect
Absolutely. But this is where the tragedy comes
in. The source notes that Chick Grafton died
on January 31st, 1982. He was 72. Okay, wait,
let me check the timeline again. When was Is
for Alibi published? April 15th, 1982. Oh, wow.
That just hits you right in the chest. It does.
Four months. He died just four months before
his daughter's debut novel, the book that was
going to turn their family name into this global
brand. hit the shelves. That is just devastating.
And he obviously knew she was writing it. He
probably read drafts, but he never saw the finished
book. He never held it. Never saw the reviews.
Never saw the success. He never saw the phenomenon
that it became. He never saw B or C or D. Never.
And I think that adds such a poignancy to the
book. You've got this rage from the divorce fueling
the plot, but then you have this beautiful, sad
tribute to a lost father fueling the actual career
path. It's a very... A very heavy emotional cocktail
for a debut novel. It is. It's not just some
commercial product. It's this vessel for her
grief and her anger. Knowing that completely
reframes the experience of reading it. It makes
the stakes feel so much higher. Okay, so let's
shift from the author to the character she created.
Let's talk about Kinsey Mellon. The icon herself.
The icon. So the source describes her as a private
detective. Independent. Tough. And the whole
book is written as a first person report. It's
not some narrator looking down from above. It's
Kinsey talking directly to us. Why is that choice
that I voice so important here? That first person
perspective is just, it's everything. It creates
this immediate intimacy. We're not just watching
Kinsey. We are Kinsey. We're seeing the world
through her cynical, super observant eyes. The
source references this critical work Jesus for
Grafton, which describes her tone as laconic,
breezy, wisecracking. Laconic and wisecracking.
I love that combination. It sounds very Bogart,
you know. But she's a woman in the 80s. It does.
And we have to remember the context of the genre
here. This is hard -boiled detective fiction.
And historically, who lives in that genre? Champ
Spade. Yeah. Philip Marlowe. You know, gritty
guys in trench coats smoking, drinking whiskey.
And there's always a dame who walks into the
office and spells trouble. Exactly. It was a
completely male -dominated space. Women in hard
-boiled novels, they were usually either the
damsels in distress or... the femme fatale. They
were objects. They were objects, not agents.
They were there to be saved or to be snuffed
with or to trick the hero. Kinsey Milhone just
walked right into that space and claimed it.
She wasn't a girl detective like Nancy Drew.
She wasn't some teenager solving fun puzzles.
And she wasn't a cozy amateur sleuth like Ms.
Marple either. Not at all. No knitting and solving
crimes in a cute little village. She was a professional.
That's a huge distinction. She charged a daily
rate. She actually worries about paying her bills.
Right. She carried a gun. Her love life was a
mess. She lived in a converted garage apartment.
She cut her own hair with nail scissors because
she didn't want to waste money on a salon. I
love that detail about the nail scissors. It
tells you everything you need to know about her
vanity or, you know, her lack of it. She's all
about function. Exactly. She ate peanut butter
and pickle sandwiches. She was just unapologetically
pragmatic and that functionality was revolutionary.
She wasn't trying to be... one of the boys, but
she wasn't performing femininity either. She
was just doing her job. Now, she does her job
in a very specific place. The book is set in
Santa Teresa. Which sounds lovely, right? A nice
place to retire. It does. But as our source points
out, Santa Teresa is a fictional city in Southern
California. It's a stand -in for Santa Barbara.
Which is where Sue Grafton actually lived. Exactly.
And using a standard city like that, it's such
a clever move. It lets you use the whole atmosphere
of a real place. You get the ocean, the wealth,
that specific California vibe, the bog rolling
in. But you can move streets around. You can
invent buildings. Yeah. And most importantly.
You can fill it with a statistically improbable
number of murders without the local tourism board
getting too upset with you. Come to Santa Barbara.
Please ignore the ever -increasing murder rate.
Exactly. It creates a whole universe. Santa Teresa
becomes a character in itself. It's sun -drenched,
but there are these long, dark shadows. That's
what people call sunshine noir. It's not the
dark, rainy streets of London or the grimy alleys
of New York. It's bright sunshine, blue ocean,
jogging trails. And poison. That contrast is
so effective. Evil doesn't just happen in the
dark. It happens in these beautiful villas with
amazing ocean views. Right. So we have the detective.
We have the setting. Now, let's get into the
case itself. Because this plot, boy, does it
have layers. It starts, as all good detective
stories do, with a client. Enter Nikki Fyfe.
So Nikki Fyfe, she has just been released from
prison. She served eight years. What was she
in for? She was convicted of killing her husband,
Lawrence Fyfe. And Lawrence was. Let me guess,
not a great guy. Well, he was a prominent divorce
lawyer. And in the world of noir, prominent divorce
lawyer is basically shorthand for a guy with
a lot of enemies. And let's not forget our origin
story. The prominent divorce lawyer as the victim.
I wonder where Grafton got that idea from. It's
not exactly subtle, is it? Not at all. It's the
ex -husband avatar getting killed right there
on page one. It really is. So Nikki's out. She
served her time, but she swears she didn't do
it. She claims she was framed or just wrongly
convicted. So she hires Kinsey to find the real
killer and finally clear her name. It's a classic
cold case setup. The trail is eight years old.
Which is a complete nightmare for a detective.
I mean, physical evidence is gone. Witnesses
have moved away or maybe they've died. Memories
have faded or they've been rewritten by time.
Kinsey is basically digging into ancient history.
Let's talk about how Lawrence Fife died. Yeah.
of murder is it's oddly specific it's not a gun
it's not a knife it is he was poisoned but not
with arsenic or cyanide you know the usual suspects
he was killed using oleander oleander that's
a flower right good plant yeah it's a very common
ornamental shrub especially in california you
see it growing everywhere along highways and
in people's gardens it has these beautiful pink
or white flowers but it's poisonous every single
part of the plant is highly toxic so someone
didn't just go out and buy poison they made it
That's the implication. The killer took these
poisonous oleander capsules and substituted them
for his allergy pills. So it wasn't just, you
know, poison in the soup. It was a capsule swap.
That is incredibly intimate. It is. Just think
about what that requires. You have to be able
to get into their private bathroom. You have
to open their medicine cabinet. You have to handle
their pill bottle. You have to prepare the capsules
so they look exactly like the real medication.
It suggests someone who lives with him. Or at
least someone who had unrestricted access to
his most private spaces. Which is why the wife,
Nikki, was the perfect suspect. The police looked
at that level of intimacy and just said, it has
to be her. It makes sense. So Kinsey takes the
job. She starts poking around the ashes of this
eight -year -old fire. And pretty quickly, she
runs into a man named Charlie Scorsone. Who is
he? Charlie Scorsone was Lawrence Fife's former
law partner. Okay, so he's successful. He's connected
to the victim. And Kinsey, being the ultimate
professional, she maintains a strict professional
distance from him, right? Oh, not exactly. This
is where Kinsey reveals she's flawed. She gets...
involved with Charlie. Involved. A romantic entanglement.
They start sleeping together, which, again, is
a staple of the hard -boiled genre. The detective
getting too close to the case. Right, but usually
it's the male detective falling for the femme
fatale. Exactly. And Grafton just flips it. Kinsey
is the one who has to navigate this attraction
while trying to solve the murder. That complicates
things massively. I mean, is she sleeping with
a witness, a suspect, a friend? An enemy? Exactly.
It blurs all the lines and it makes her vulnerable.
She's letting someone inside her defenses, which
is dangerous in her line of work. So while she's
getting cozy with the law partner, the investigation
starts to expand. She finds a link to another
death. This is the big breakthrough. She discovers
that a woman in Los Angeles, the law firm's accountant
Libby Glass, also died around the same time as
Lawrence Veith. And let me guess. Oleander. Oleander
capsules substituted for her pills. Wow. OK,
so that's a signature. That's not a coincidence.
That connects the two deaths definitively. Right.
Lightning doesn't strike twice like that. This
changes everything. Because if Nikki Fife was
in prison or dealing with her husband's murder,
did she really have a motive to go all the way
to L .A. and kill an accountant? Probably not.
Or does this suggest some kind of broader conspiracy?
It widens the scope from a domestic dispute to
something potentially corporate or professional.
So Kinsey starts following this new trail. She
tracks down the accountant's parents, her former
boyfriend. She's trying to figure out what the
accountant knew. Why was she a target? And then
the investigation takes her to Las Vegas. She
goes to interview a woman named Sharon Napier.
This was Lawrence Fife's former secretary. And
the secretaries in these novels, they always
know where the bodies are buried. Sometimes literally.
They see everything. The appointments, the phone
calls, all the secrets. So Kinsey drives out
to Vegas. She's expecting a... Pretty standard
interview. But she doesn't get much of a chance
to chat, does she? No. This is where the pacing
just kicks into high gear. It goes from this
slow burn cold case to a thriller. Sharon Napier
is killed just minutes before Kinsey arrives
at her door. Literally minutes. Kinsey basically
walks in on the crime scene while it's still
fresh. Exactly. So the killer isn't just a ghost
from the past. The killer is active. The killer
is cleaning up loose ends right now. Exactly.
The whole stakes have shifted. It's gone from
solving a puzzle to surviving a hunt. Someone
knows Kinsey's asking questions, and they are
killing anyone who might have the answers. Okay,
so we have a dead lawyer, a dead accountant,
and now a dead secretary. And Kinsey is running
out of leads. But then we get to the twists.
And this book, it seems to have what they call
a false solution structure. It does. Which is
a very clever structural trick. It gives the
reader exactly what they think they want and
then pulls the rug out. It starts with a photograph.
Nicky's son, Colin, he sees a photo and he recognizes
someone. He points to a woman in a picture and
identifies her as Gwen. And Gwen was Lawrence
Fife's first wife. The ex -wife. The first ex
-wife. So now we have this whole geometry problem.
You've got Lawrence, the victim, the first wife,
Gwen. And the second wife, Nikki, who is Kinsey's
client. And Kinsey puts together a theory. She
surmises that Gwen was having an affair with
Lawrence, her ex -husband, at the time of his
death. Which gives us a motive, right? Jealousy.
Passion. A lover's quarrel gone horribly wrong.
Maybe Lawrence was going to dump her again for
someone new. So Kinsey confronts Gwen. She lays
it all out for her. She accuses her. And what
does Gwen do? She confesses. Just like that?
She admits to killing Lawrence. Wow. Okay, well,
case closed then. Roll the credits. The bad guy,
or the bad woman, is caught. Well, that's what
the reader is supposed to think. Because Gwen
confesses, and then, very, very shortly after
that, Gwen dies in a hit -and -run crash. That
is convenient. Extremely convenient. A little
too convenient, maybe. So, from the outside,
it looks like this clean wrap -up. Nikki, the
client, is cleared because Gwen confessed. The
killer, Gwen, is dead, so... Justice of a sort
has been served. Kinsey can collect her fee and
go home. But this is a mystery novel, and if
you look at the page count, you realize you've
still got a good chunk of pages left. A confession
that comes out easily, followed by the super
convenient death of the confessor. That's a massive
red flag. It's very suspicious. So Kinsey isn't
satisfied. Kinsey starts pulling at this one
loose thread, and the realization hits her, the
accountant. Right, the other victim. The woman
in L .A. Gwen's confession covers Lawrence Fife.
She admitted to killing her ex -husband. Emotionally,
that makes sense. But why would Gwen, the first
wife, kill the law firm's accountant in Los Angeles?
What's the motive there? The Oleander method
linked the two murders, but the motive doesn't
link them to Gwen. Exactly. Kinsey realizes her
theory about the accountant's death was totally
wrong. Gwen didn't kill the accountant. So who
did? Kinsey digs back into the financials, and
she finds out the accountant had discovered something.
She'd found someone skimming dividend money from
estate accounts. Embezzlement. The white -collar
crime that so often leads to red -blooded murder.
And who had access to those accounts? Who was
the partner managing all of that? Oh, no. Don't
say it. It's Charlie Scorsone. The guy Kinsey
is sleeping with. The very same. Oh, that is
cold. That is so cool. It's the ultimate betrayal.
The villain was right there in the bed next to
her the whole time. So let's break this down.
Let's break down Scorsone's whole scheme. This
is pretty complex. He was embezzling money. The
accountant, Libby Glass, found out about it.
So Scorsone had to kill the accountant to silence
her. But, and this is the really devious part,
he knew that Gwen had killed Lawrence Fife with
oleander. Or at least he figured it out. Wait,
so the source says Scorsone used the same method
Gwen used just to make it look like it was the
same killer? Right. It's a copycat murder, but
it's designed to frame someone else. If the accountant
dies by Iliander, everyone is going to assume
it's connected to Lawrence Fife's killer, who
they think is either Gwen or Nikki. It deflects
all suspicion away from the embezzlement and
points it directly toward the personal drama
of the Fife family. That is diabolical. He piggybacked
on a murder to hide his own murder. It's incredibly
smart. Evil, but smart. It camouflages a financial
crime as a crime of passion. So Kinsey figures
all this out. She realizes her boyfriend is a
double murderer. And then Scorsone must realize
that she knows. And that leads us to the final
confrontation. And where does this take place?
Not in a grimy alley, I'm guessing. No, in true
California fashion, it all goes down at the beach.
But this is not a romantic walk on the beach
at sunset. Not at all. Scorsone chases her. He's
armed with a knife. He's going to kill her just
like he killed the others, or at least silence
her permanently. A knife chase on a beach. That
sounds exhausting. I mean, sand is hard to run
in. It is. And Kinsey has to resort to these
desperate tactics. She runs into the ocean. She
tries to hide in the shoreline in the waves.
And the source mentions this one specific detail
here that really stood out to me. It says she
has to remove her shoes and her pants. Yes. To
move in the water and the wet sand, to keep from
being weighed down by heavy, wet denim, she strips
off her clothing. She takes off her shoes and
pants. There is something so incredibly vulnerable
about that image. You're being hunted by a man
with a knife, and you are half -naked, freezing
in the cold Pacific Ocean. It heightens the tension
so much. It just strips away all of the detective
armor. She doesn't have her car. She doesn't
have her metaphorical trench coat. She's just
a human body trying to survive. It's primal.
But she does have one thing. She has her gun.
She managed to keep the gun dry. Or at least
keep a hold of it. She has it. And when Scorsone
finally closes in on her, expecting an easy kill.
How does it end? Before Scorsone can stab her,
Kinsey shoots him dead. Boom. Just like that.
No rest. No reading him his rights. No trial.
He's dead on the beach. What's your take on that
resolution? I mean, it's pretty violent for a
debut novel. It is, but it establishes Kinsey's
morality and her reality right from the start.
She's not a superhero who neatly ties the bad
guy up for the police to collect. She survives.
And sometimes survival means you have to kill
the bad guy. It's messy. It also, you know, closes
the book on that romance in the most definitive
way possible. Yeah, I shot my boyfriend is a
pretty final breakup text. It certainly is. And
she feels the weight of it. She doesn't just
shrug it off and move on. In the later books,
that moment really sticks with her. Okay, now
before we get to the reception of the book, we
have to talk about a subplot. Because there is
this whole secondary storyline running parallel
to all this murder and mayhem. The Marcia Threadgill
case. Right. And this seems totally unconnected
at first. Kinsey is doing a surveillance job
on a woman named Marcia Threadgill. It's an insurance
fraud case, right? A classic trip and fall. Exactly.
Kinsey gets hired to prove that Marcia is faking
an injury just to get a big payout from an insurance
company. And Kinsey is good at her job. She documents
the deception. She gets the pictures, the proof.
She wins the investigative part of the battle.
She hands this airtight case over to the insurance
firm and she's thinking, OK, job done. Fraud
exposed. Justice will be served. What? But the
insurance firm pays the claim anyway. Why? That
makes absolutely no sense. They cite potential
legal costs. They say it's actually cheaper to
just pay her off, even though they know she is
lying, than it is to fight it in court. They
also mention the risk of reprisal. That is so
cynical. It is perfectly cynical, and that is
exactly why it is in the book. Ah, okay. So it's
not just filler to pad out the pages. No, not
at all. It serves a huge thematic purpose. It
shows the difference between the truth and the
system. Kinsey is great at finding the truth,
but she can't fix the system. The corporate world
is pragmatic. not moral. It just adds this deep
layer of noir realism. I see. In a cozy mystery,
the fraudster would be arrested and the whole
village would cheer. In Kinsey's world, the fraudster
gets a check because it's better for the company's
bottom line. It really grounds the story, doesn't
it? And it reminds us that Kinsey is just working
for a paycheck in a world that doesn't always
care about right and wrong. It reinforces that
she's this individual fighting against a machine
that is totally indifferent to her. Or to justice.
Exactly. It's a very sophisticated theme for
a debut mystery novel. Okay, so the book comes
out. It's April 1982. The plot is twisty. The
protagonist is fresh. The ending is explosive.
It must have been an instant bestseller, right?
Yeah, it's not quite. Let's look at the actual
stats. The first printing was 7 ,500 copies.
7 ,500. That is modest. That's a very small splash
in a very big pond. And the initial sales were
only about 6 ,000 copies. 6 ,000 people bought
the first edition of the book that started the
entire Alphabet series. Yeah. And if you listening
right now have one of those original 6 ,000 copies,
by the way. Hold on to it. It's probably worth
a fortune now. Oh, absolutely. A mint first edition
is a collector's holy grail. Yeah. But at the
time, it was a very quiet launch, was not a blockbuster.
And what about the reviews? We have the receipts
here. Let's look at what the critics actually
said back in 1982. It's a real mixed bag. Kirkus
Reviews called it a shakily plotted but otherwise
terrific start. Shakily plotted. Ouch. To be
fair, the plot is complicated. The double oleander
twist, the copycat element. It does require some
suspension of disbelief, but they did praise
the dialogue in her eye for people. OK, what
about the New York Times, the paper of record?
The critic was Newgate Calendar, which is a fantastic
name for a critic, by the way. Sounds like a
character in the book. It really does. And he
basically dismissed it. He called it competent
enough, but not particularly original. Not particularly
original. That hurts. I mean, she was flipping
the gender dynamics of an entire genre. It just
shows that sometimes critics miss the forest
for the trees. They saw the basic detective solves
murder structure and they thought, OK, we've
seen this before. They completely missed the
revolutionary nature of who was solving it. They
missed the voice. And the library journal. Originally,
they were really unenthusiastic. They called
it nothing to take it out of the ordinary. Although
they did admit that they liked the female detective
character. It's just fascinating to see how all
these reviews completely missed the start of
what would become a cultural phenomenon. It happens
all the time. Critics are there to analyze the
mechanics, the plot holes, the pacing. But readers,
they connect with the person. Readers fell in
love with Kinsey Milhone. They didn't really
care if the plot was a little shaky. They just
wanted to hang out with her. They wanted to hear
her voice. They wanted to see her eat a pickle
sandwich and tell some guy to get lost. And that
voice is what carried the series for decades.
All the way from A to Y. So let's wrap this up.
We've gone all the way from a divorce -fueled
fantasy to a 6 ,000 -copy debut. We've covered
embezzlement. different kinds of poisonings,
insurance fraud, and a barefoot beach shootout.
It's a lot for one book. It is. And looking back,
the legacy is just undeniable. Sugrafton never
made it to Z. She died before she could write
it. But she left us with 25 novels that documented
the life of this incredible, groundbreaking character.
And why is for yesterday, her final book really
brought things full circle in a powerful way.
But A will always be special because it's the
spark. It's the moment the engine started. It's
the origin point. And it raises a really provocative
thought to to leave our listeners with. What's
that? Think about the butterfly effect of that
divorce we talked about at the very beginning.
If Sue Grafton hadn't gone through that terrible
separation, if she hadn't felt that specific
murderous rage, if she hadn't needed to channel
all that anger into. creating Kinsey Milhone,
would the landscape of modern mystery fiction
look different today? That is a wild thought.
I mean, no Kinsey could mean maybe no V .I. Warshawski,
no Kay Scarpetta. Maybe. Maybe it would have
taken another 10 years for women to really break
into that hard -boiled space. It just goes to
show sometimes the absolute worst moments in
life, a divorce, the death of a father, they're
what fuels the most enduring art. The pain becomes
the page. The pain becomes the page. I like that.
We should put that on a t -shirt. Maybe we should.
But certainly in Sue Grafton's case, the pain
became a legacy. Well, thank you for taking this
journey back to 1982 with us. Whether you're
a longtime fan of Kinsey or you've never read
a single page, I really hope this deep dive gave
you a new appreciation for A is for Alibi. It's
always worth revisiting the classic. Absolutely.
Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you
on the next deep dive.