Kinsey Millhone (born May 5, 1950) is a fictional female private investigator created by Sue Grafton, and is the protagonist of Grafton's "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. In addition, Millhone appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton. The Kinsey Millhone novels are set in Santa Teresa, a fictionalized version of Santa Barbara, California, in the 1980s.

Kinsey Millhone was born on May 5, 1950. Her unusual first name was her mother's surname before her marriage to Kinsey's father. Kinsey lived with her parents until they were killed in a car wreck when she was five.

Kinsey survived in the car for several hours before she was rescued. She then moved in with her aunt (her mother's sister) Gin, who was the only relative still in contact with her mother; the rest of the family disapproved of her marriage and cut off contact with her. It is from Aunt Gin that Kinsey has taken a few of her eccentricities, such as her liking for peanut-butter and pickle sandwiches.

In high school, Kinsey was a delinquent. After three semesters at the local community college she realized that academic life was not for her and she took a job with the Santa Teresa police force. After two years, Kinsey quit the police force and became an investigator for California Fidelity, an insurance company.

Eventually, she became a self-employed private investigator, solving various disappearances and murders, clearing names and dodging hitmen. Kinsey is 5'6" and weighs about 118 pounds. She has short, dark, thick hair that she trims with nail scissors, being generally disinterested in her physical appearance.

She does, however, place a great premium on physical fitness and jogs three miles every day. At the same time, she is an enthusiastic junk food fanatic. Kinsey has been divorced twice.

Her first husband Mickey, an ex-cop, appears in "O" is for Outlaw and her second husband Daniel, a struggling musician, appears in "E" is for Evidence. Kinsey has no children, and she lives in a garage converted into an apartment. Her landlord is a young-at-heart octogenarian named Henry Pitts who enjoys creating crossword puzzles and is famous for his baking; Kinsey herself states that she has a crush on Henry.

She suffers from tinnitus, caused when she shot an attacker from inside a trash can. Kinsey has had several relationships in the series, beginning with Charlie Scorsoni, continuing through Jonah Robb and Robert Dietz, until the present novels in which she's begun an affair with longtime friend Cheney Phillips.

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