"A" is for Alibi (1982)

Fresh from prison, Nikki Fife asks Kinsey Millhone to prove she did not kill her husband. Grafton gives the first alphabet mystery a direct professional task and a private investigator whose independence, dry observations and practical routines are already pleasurable company. The case does not require affection accumulated over later books. A Is for Alibi is a useful choice for a relatively compact, workmanlike introduction to a long-running investigator, with the eighties setting integral to how the enquiries proceed.