It’s the birthday of bestselling author Sue Grafton (1940-2017), whose mystery series begins with A Is for Alibi (1982) and ends with Y Is for Yesterday (2017). The novels feature oft-divorced detective Kinsey Millhone, who says early in the first novel, “The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.” Grafton is one of the writers credited with introducing tough female P.I.s to the genre.

Grafton was born in Louisville, Kentucky; her father, a lawyer, also wrote mysteries. Grafton’s favorite book from childhood was the fantasy novel Twig (1942) by Elizabeth Orton Jones. She also read a lot of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie growing up but found Mickey Spillane’s novel I, the Jury to be “a revelation.” Grafton studied English at the University of Louisville (with a two-year stint at a teacher’s college in the middle) and then started grad school but didn’t like it, instead moving to California, where she eventually published her first couple of novels, Keziah Dane (1967) and The Lolly-Madonna War (1969). She adapted the latter for the screen and got into screenplay writing but ditched it as soon as she could when her breakout novel, A Is for Alibi, was published.

Grafton cited Edward Gorey’s book The Gashlycrumb Tinies (1963) as one of the inspirations for her own alphabet-based series. In Gorey’s charming but macabre book, 26 children die in 26 strange ways: “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs; / B is for Basil assaulted by bears; / C is for Clara who wasted away; / D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh…”

(NB: Someone once taped a postcard of S from The Gashlycrumb Tinies on my dorm room door at Oberlin: “S is for Susan who perished of fits.” It’s true that I sort of freaked when it turned out our room was spider infested. It’s also true that I’m not generally known as “calm” or “serene” or “someone you would even remotely want around in the event of a medical emergency.”)

Grafton married three times; the third time took. She and the third husband split their time between Santa Barbara County in California and Louisville. Grafton had two daughters and one son and various cats. She died at 77 from cancer.

Have a calm, serene Wednesday if that is at all in your wheelhouse—slow, deep breaths, people—and stay scrupulously honest to the data.