S Is for Silence was published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in 2005. Violet Sullivan vanished on the night of July 4, 1953, from the small California town of Serena Station. Her daughter, now middle-aged, hires Kinsey to find out what happened. The novel alternates between Kinsey’s 1987 investigation and third-person chapters set in 1953, showing the events leading up to Violet’s disappearance from multiple perspectives.
The dual-timeline structure is unique in the series and gives the novel a richness unusual even for Grafton: the 1953 chapters render Violet as a living woman (beautiful, unhappy, sexually reckless, desperately wanting to escape her life) rather than merely a mystery to be solved. The reader knows Violet in a way that Kinsey, working from thirty-four-year-old memories, never can.
Violet Sullivan
Violet is among Grafton’s most vivid creations — a woman trapped in a small town with an abusive husband, using her beauty and sexuality as the only tools of escape available to her. The 1953 chapters are rendered with period detail that goes beyond costume: the social constraints on women, the limited options, the small-town surveillance that made privacy impossible. Violet’s desperation is palpable.
Collecting S Is for Silence
First edition (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2005): Boards with dust jacket.
Approximate market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $15–$30
- Signed first edition: $30–$80
Projected values (2026–2036): Modest appreciation. The structural ambition makes this a critics’ favourite.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the best late-period Millhone novel? Many critics think so. The dual-timeline structure gives it a depth and complexity that set it apart from the formula.