NEW ON THE LIST AND IN PUBLISHING

‘Y’ ask why?

Sue Grafton’s multitude of fans know the end is near. And they’ve shot the penultimate book in the author’s popular Alphabet Mystery series, Y Is for Yesterday, to No. 1 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list.

This is the third P.I. Kinsey Millhone book in a row to make its debut in the top spot. W Is for Wasted landed at No. 1 on Sept.

19, 2013, while X did the same on Sept. 3, 2015.

The series kicked off in 1982 with A Is for Alibi. The first Grafton mystery to hit No. 1 was L Is for Lawless in

1995. (USA TODAY’s bestseller list began in fall 1993.) The only other Alphabet title to top the list was Q Is for Quarry in 2002.

In Y Is for Yesterday, Millhone is called into a case involving the murder of a girl at an elite private school.

Grafton has made a game teasing out which word she’ll choose to go with the letter in each new title. With X, she changed things up and went with plain old X.

But the 77-year-old writer long ago revealed the title for the very last Alphabet mystery, which will be called Z Is for Zero and will hit stores in fall 2019.

Then what?

Here’s Grafton’s answer, posted on her web site: “Many of you are asking (some quite plaintively) what I intend to do when I get to ‘the end’ of the alphabet. I’ve been consistent in my response, which is ‘no clue.’ I want to see what kind of shape I’m in mentally and physically. I don’t want to keep on writing if the juice is gone. These novels about Ms. Millhone take incredible focus, ingenuity, energy, and imagination. If I have the wherewithal, I may write a Kinsey Millhone stand-alone or two. If I feel I’ve lost my touch, I’ll retire with grace.”