Santa Teresa (fictional city)

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Santa Teresa has been used by several authors as the name of an invented city.

Contents

Ross Macdonald

Santa Teresa was created by Ross Macdonald as a fictionalised version of Santa Barbara, California, in his mystery The Moving Target (1949). [1] He used it again in several others of his works, including The Galton Case (1959), The Instant Enemy (1968), and The Underground Man (1971). For reasons not disclosed, recent publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Vintage Crime/Black Lizard changed all Santa Teresa text in the books to Santa Barbara. Ebooks based on this version now have that corruption of the original work.

Sue Grafton

In the 1980s, the writer Sue Grafton began using a fictional Santa Teresa as the setting for her novels featuring her lead character Kinsey Millhone, a fictional female private investigator. [2] Millhone is the protagonist of Grafton's "alphabet mysteries" series of novels. [3] [4] Grafton chose the setting as a tribute to Macdonald, an acknowledged influence. [5] In the Kinsey Millhone version, the town has a population of 85,000 and has a small airport.

Nearby, Grafton describes a fictional “luxury residential development” laid out on a sprawling expanse of land called Horton Ravine, which “once belonged to one family, but is now divided into million-dollar parcels”. Although the fictional private investigator Kinsey Millhone acknowledges that “rich is rich”, she contrasts “‘new’ money” Horton Ravine to the “‘old’ money” graciousness of nearby Montebello, a thinly-disguised tribute to real-life Montecito, California. [6]

Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño set his novel 2666 (2004) primarily in a northern Mexican city called Santa Teresa. [7] The novel features female homicides as central theme, inspired largely by female homicides in Ciudad Juárez. This fictional city had already appeared in his earlier novel The Savage Detectives . [8]

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Priestman, Martin (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Cambridge University Press.
  2. ↑ Everett, Todd (1991-05-23). "Mystery Town: Whodunit author Sue Grafton lives in Santa Barbara and sets her tales in Santa Teresa". Los Angeles Times . p. J15.
  3. ↑ Hawkes, Ellen (1990-02-18). "G IS FOR GRAFTON Instead of Killing Her Ex-Husband, Sue Grafton Created a Smart-Mouthed, Hard-Boiled (and Incidentally Female) Detective Named Kinsey Millhone". Los Angeles Times Magazine. p. 20.
  4. ↑ Natalie Hevener Kaufman, Carol McGinnis Kay (1997). "G" Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone (Hardcover ed.). Henry Holt and Company. ISBN   0-8050-5446-4.
  5. ↑ Nolan, Tom. "Ross Macdonald". BookSense . Archived from the original on May 18, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  6. ↑ Grafton, Sue (1982). “A” is for Alibi. Thorndike Press Large Print Famous Authors, 2008, in arrangement with Henry Holt & Company. p. 374-375. ISBN   9781410406811.
  7. ↑ Kirsch, Adam (November 3, 2008). "Slouching Towards Santa Teresa". Slate.
  8. ↑ Zalewski, Daniel (March 26, 2007). "Vagabonds". The New Yorker.

Related Research Articles

Sue Grafton American writer

Sue Taylor Grafton was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.

<i>"A" Is for Alibi</i>

"A" Is for Alibi by Sue Grafton, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1982, is the first mystery novel in the author's "Alphabet" series. Featuring sleuth Kinsey Millhone, it is set in the southern California city of Santa Teresa, the nom de plume for Santa Barbara. She wrote the book during a divorce and admits about her husband that she "would lie in bed at night thinking of ways to kill him". The New York Times gave the book a lukewarm review.

Kinsey Millhone is a fictional character who was created by American author Sue Grafton (1940–2017) for her "alphabet mysteries" series of best-selling novels which debuted in 1982 and feature 25 volumes. Millhone, a former police officer turned private investigator, also appears in a number of short stories written by Grafton.

<i>"G" Is for Gumshoe</i>

"G" Is for Gumshoe (1990) is the seventh novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"H" Is for Homicide</i>

"H" Is for Homicide is the eighth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"B" Is for Burglar</i> 1985 novel by Sue Grafton

"B" Is for Burglar is a mystery novel by American writer Sue Grafton. It was published in 1985 by Henry Holt and Company as the second novel in her "Alphabet" series of mystery novels.

<i>"C" Is for Corpse</i> 1986 book by Sue Grafton

"C" Is for Corpse is the third novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"D" Is for Deadbeat</i>

"D" Is for Deadbeat is the fourth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California. The novel follows the development of Kinsey's relationship with Jonah Robb, the police officer she met in B is for Burglar.

<i>"F" Is for Fugitive</i>

"F" Is for Fugitive is the sixth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"J" Is for Judgment</i>

"J" Is for Judgment is the tenth novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California. The novel is set in 1984 and features a significant development in Kinsey's personal back-story, as she discovers that she has extensive family living in the Lompoc area.

<i>"L" Is for Lawless</i>

"L" Is for Lawless is the 12th novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"N" Is for Noose</i>

"N" Is for Noose is the 14th novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, although much of this novel's action takes place elsewhere in California.

<i>"Q" Is for Quarry</i>

"Q" Is for Quarry is the 17th novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"R" Is for Ricochet</i>

"R" Is for Ricochet is the 18th novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"T" Is for Trespass</i>

"T" Is for Trespass is the 20th novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in the fictional Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"U" Is for Undertow</i>

"U" Is for Undertow is the 21st novel in the "Alphabet" series of mystery novels by Sue Grafton. It features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.

<i>"V" Is for Vengeance</i>

"V" Is for Vengeance is the 22nd novel in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California.

<i>"W" Is for Wasted</i>

"W" Is for Wasted is the twenty-third novel in the "Alphabet" series of mystery novels by Sue Grafton. It features Kinsey Millhone, a private detective based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California.

<i>X</i> (novel) 2015 novel by Sue Grafton

"X" is the twenty-fourth novel in the "Alphabet" series of mystery novels by Sue Grafton. It features Kinsey Millhone, a private detective based in Santa Teresa, California, a fictional version of Santa Barbara, California.

<i>"Y" Is for Yesterday</i>

"Y" Is for Yesterday is the twenty-fifth and final novel in the "Alphabet" series of mystery novels by Sue Grafton. Grafton intended to write a Z novel, but she died before she was able to do so. It features Kinsey Millhone, a private detective based in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California.

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