And the title of her latest book is ...

Other guesses included wicked, witness, wrath and whodunit.

 Grafton spoke with USA TODAY's Carol Memmott about W is for Wasted (to be published on Sept. 10) and the remaining books in the series. And don't miss this exclusive peak at the book jacket.

 Q. Why did you ask readers to guess the title?
A. For one thing, my readers are so caught up in this whole process. They enjoy trying to outwit me, so I thought, let's just give them a chance to participate. One website stated incorrectly that the contest was for readers to choose the title and I about fainted because there's no way I could open it up in that manner. Because who's going to guess what I'm writing about or how a title would apply?

Q: How does "Wasted" link to the novel's plot?
A: I think my use of the word is if you're drunk or out of it on drugs. You know, you're so wasted you can't stand up straight. And I am writing about a clinical trial and I'm writing about the homeless — two or three of the fellows participate in this study. And mostly it's the notion of all the waste in crime. Murder is a waste. There is just a sense that there's such a loss when it comes down to criminal behavior. So part of it is metaphorical, if you'll forgive me. I hate to use snooty words.

Q: Was this title hard to come up with?
A.: There did turn out to be quite a few usable words, so that was not an issue in itself. It's usually just a question of what is going to apply. O was a hideous problem because obituary, for instance, does not translate into other languages. And obit didn't sound right and it didn't have any meaning. So my husband came up with the word outlaw and that worked. And with W, I made a list as I always do as I began work on the book, just so that I had a sense of the words that might play into the storytelling process. And then at a certain point I settled on the term wasted.

 Q: So you have to keep in mind whether the title will translate to a "W" word in other languages?
A: Often one of the main characters will have a name that starts with the letter of the alphabet so like in C is for Corpse there was Bobby Callahan and in some countries it was called C is for Callahan. And in some languages, there are certain letters that don't exist so I have to leave that to them to solve.

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