V.I. is hired to search for a young gangster who has been missing since the night of a snowstorm in 1967. Her search leads to confrontations with an incarcerated gang leader, to involvement with a decades-old murder that took place during a civil rights demonstration, and gets entangled with the ...
In Kansas, on land that once saw some of America's bloodiest antislavery battles, three families have coexisted for more than one hundred fifty years: the Grelliers, the Fremantles, and the Schapens. Once allies in the fight against slavery, today the Schapens and the Grelliers disagree on every ...
I am reading several books at the same time. I often do that when I am reading a difficult book. Killing Orders is my R&R from reading The Girls Who Went Away, a book about the experiences of young unwed women who released their babies for adoption in the 1950s and 1960s. V.I. Warshawski with al...
When I started this book, I didn’t understand how much I wanted a read that rose to five stars. Blood Shot doesn’t rise to the level of great classical literature but it served my needs better than I could have hoped. Lots of action requiring suspension of disbelief led to a conclusion worthy of ...
Sara Paretsky's ninth novel is one of only two which do not feature private investigator V I Warshawski. It is set in Chicago and focuses on homeless women and females raised by oppressive adults. Mara and Harriet Stonds are half sisters (same mother, different fathers), who lost their mother s...
I ran across the word “aeon” in a book I just finished and then again in a book that I just started. Both spelled in this British way rather than the more common “eon”. I considered that a sign. Both books were published in 1990 and I thought that cinched it. I should move into the current era an...
Oddly, even though I've read many of the V.I. Warshawski novels, I'd yet to read the first one until; now.I have certain expectations of one of Vic Warshawski's exploits: well-written; tightly plotted; intricately bound up with Chicago culturally, politically. and topographically; gritty, and, of...
One of the reasons I am fond of Sara Paretsky is her ability to locate her stories in the political and social events of the day. In the first chapter of Blacklist, set in 2002, she reflects on the World Trade Center, the Taliban, Afghanistan and anthrax. V.I. Warshawski leans to the left and I l...
VI loose in her old S. Chicago hood, chasing shadows...We've read the entire prior dozen entries in Paretsky's Chicago leading lady, private investigator V.I. Warshawski series -- so we guess we're fans at least by default. We were definitely not fond of her just prior "Blacklist" which was so fu...
This is the eighth book in the V.I. Warshawski series. The year is 1992 and V.I. is making her usual effort to do good community organizing and to scratch out a living working at her one person private investigation agency. She has so many rough edges that it is hard to get close to her. Hardscra...
This is book #4 of the V.I. Warshawski series and was published back in the days when Paretsky books were smaller and shorter. This one is 222 pages in the original hardback version published in 1987, an amazing twenty-five years ago. What were you reading in 1987? I will be interested to see how...
Age and experience has not withered VI Warshawski. In Sara Paretsky's latest tale, Total Recall, the uncompromising and wildly unconventional private investigator chases leads and suspects around Chicago "like a pinball, careening around the city", despite the fact that she is now positively the ...
Listeners get two mysteries in one. In "Tunnel Vision, " V.I. Warshawski embarks on another crime-solving adventure involving a homeless advocate group headed by her old college flame. "Windy City Blues" is a collection of five short stories that includes "Grace Notes."
“I thought they gave you a big vote of confidence after that riot or whatever it was two days ago.”“Vic, didn’t you see the paper yesterday? You know how I said Murray called me about the attack on me and Kira and Arielle? I think, I mean, I know I shouldn’t have talked to a reporter without clea...
I. Warshawski Novel I THE GYM WAS DANK—chlorine and sweat combined in a hot, sticky mass. Shouts from the trainers, from the swimmers, from the spectators, bounced from the high metal ceilings and back and forth from the benches lining the pool on two sides. The cacophony set up an unpleasant buz...
I sat up, slowly, painfully, massaging my fingers, which tingled, as if I’d bathed them in acid. My side ached where Davilats had kicked me. I could feel the darts, one in my left pectoral, the other in my thigh. I pulled the one from my thigh; my jeans had kept it from going in very deeply. The ...
Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine Chapter 11 - House Call Burgoyne took me to a small Spanish restaurant he used to frequent in his student days. He was greeted like a long-lost son by the effusive owner and his wife-“So long since we have seen you, Senor Burgoyne-we thought you had moved away.” Th...
The restaurant took up the ground floor of an old Victorian house. The family, who all played a role in preparing and presenting the meal, lived upstairs. It was Thursday, a quiet night with only a few of the inlaid wooden tables filled, and Louis came out to talk to Bledsoe, who was a frequent g...
I wanted to take enough sleeping pills to put me under until at least my cold had passed, if not until every member of the Guzzo family died, but I forced myself to my feet.My face in the bathroom mirror would have done Picasso proud: the left side held a creative mix of yellows, purples and gree...