B Is for Burglar was published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1985. Beverly Danziger hires Kinsey to find her sister Elaine Boldt, who has disappeared from her winter residence in Florida. What begins as a routine missing-person case becomes something darker when evidence suggests that Elaine may not have disappeared voluntarily — and that her absence is connected to a fire, a death, and a decades-old pattern of fraud.
The novel deepens Kinsey’s character and establishes the series’ rhythm: cases that begin simply and grow complex, with Kinsey’s dogged investigation peeling away layers of deception to reveal the squalid human motivations beneath.
The Locate Job
Grafton’s genius was finding murder in the mundane. A missing-person locate — the bread and butter of real private investigation — becomes the vehicle for exploring greed, family dysfunction, and the elaborate lies people construct to sustain criminal enterprises. The Florida sections give the novel a dual-coast geography that distinguishes it from the California-bound first entry.
Kinsey’s World
The novel establishes the domestic details that make Kinsey one of mystery fiction’s most vivid characters: her converted garage apartment behind Henry Pitts’s house, her preference for peanut-butter sandwiches, her complicated relationship with landlord Henry (a retired baker in his eighties who becomes her surrogate family). These details are never decorative; they establish Kinsey as a woman who has constructed a life of deliberate simplicity.
Collecting B Is for Burglar
First edition (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1985): Boards with dust jacket.
Approximate market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $200–$500
- Signed first edition: $400–$1,000
Projected values (2026–2036): Strong appreciation. Early alphabet novels are increasingly scarce in fine condition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read the alphabet series in order? Each novel is a self-contained mystery, but character development is cumulative. Reading in order is recommended.
Why the three-year gap between A and B? Grafton was still building the series’ commercial audience. By the mid-1990s, she was publishing annually.