C. W. Grafton

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Cornelius Warren ("Chip") Grafton (born 1909, died 1982) was a American crime novelist. He was born and raised in China, where his parents were working as missionaries. He was educated in Clinton, South Carolina, studying law and journalism, and became an attorney in Louisville, Kentucky.

The hero of his first two mystery novels (The Rat Began To Gnaw The Rope and The Rope Began To Hang The Butcher) was a lawyer named Gilmore Henry. Using the first two lines of a nursery rhyme as the titles of his first two novels suggested that other Gilmore Henry novels would follow, but none did and Henry did not appear in Grafton's two subsequent novels.

Grafton was married to Vivian Harnsberger. Their daughter, Sue Grafton, is also a writer and is famous for her "Alphabet Series" crime novels.

[edit] Bibliography

• The Rat Began To Gnaw The Rope (1943)
• The Rope Began To Hang The Butcher (1944)
• My Name Is Christopher Nagel (1947)
• Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (1950)