But she did not care for the dynamics of writing for TV and film.

“Ask me if I’d ever sell the film or TV rights to these books,” she said in a 2013 interview with The Minneapolis Star Tribune promoting “W Is for Wasted.” “No, I would not. I would never let those clowns get their hands on my work. They’d ruin it for everyone, me more than most.”

She had actually written seven novels before she began the alphabet series.

“Of those, No. 4 and 5 were published,” she told The Star Tribune. “The rest are in the trash.”

“A Is for Alibi” was her eighth book and, she said, “my ticket out of Hollywood.”

The notion of the alphabetical series, she said, was inspired by “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” Edward Gorey’s macabre 1963 rhyming book in which 26 children meet bizarre ends.

“I was smitten with all those little Victorian children being dispatched in various ways,” she told The New York Times in 2015. “ ‘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.’ Edward Gorey was deliciously bent.”

Her book series features Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator, whom “A Is for Alibi” introduced this way:

“My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator, licensed by the state of California. I’m thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.”

Ms. Grafton read the Nancy Drew books and Agatha Christie growing up, but, she said, the first book that really rocked her was Mickey Spillane’s “I, the Jury.”