Tuesday, December 7

Grafton's publishers refuse to believe Xylophone deadly.

S is for ... Seriously?
New York, NY — Best-selling author Sue Grafton has run into trouble from an unlikely source: her very own publisher.

Her "Alphabet Series" mystery novels have sold over 11 billion titles worldwide, next only to prolific page whore Dean Koontz, who has sold an estimated 156 trillion books. 

Now, her latest challenge — to base a scintillating murder mystery off of the letter X — has executives at Berkley Books, a division of Penguin USA, second-guessing the letter-loving novelist.

"We love Sue's take on the mystery genre. She's produced 21 outstanding novels, each with a devious new twist on the alphabet. Heck, the upcoming V and W books are really outstanding. But we've told her to go back to the drawing board on this. She's obsessed with perfecting the first college marching band murder mystery. It's stupid. Tragically stupid." said Berkley representative Gideon Shaw.

Leaks of an early manuscript describe Grafton's intrepid alter-ego, Kinsey Milhone investigating a spate of murders in which the victims are found with musical instruments lodged in various bodily orifices.

"Frankly, it reads like a second-rate Scooby Doo episode. By page 22, I knew it was the bipolar sousaphone player."  lamented Shaw.

Grafton declined to comment, instead retreating to her twitter account to post "@gideon_shaw: Maybe I should start over with A is for Asshat?"

Grafton's current offering in the series is  U is for Undertow.