New Releases by Sara Paretsky

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A spectacular mystery—complex, fast-paced yet ruminative, and imbued with the grim awareness, shared by all intelligent hard-boiled novels, that the past always catches up with us . . . a thrilling and even moving mystery.”—The Washington Post Book World V.I.’s journey begins with a national conference in downtown Chicago, where angry protesters are calling for the recovery of Holocaust assets. Replayed on the evening news is the scene of a slight man who has stood up at the conference to tell an astonishing story of a childhood shattered by the Holocaust — a story that has devastating consequences for V.I.’s cherished friend and mentor, Lotty Herschel. Lotty was a girl of nine when she emigrated from Austria to England, one of a group of children wrenched from their parents and saved from the Nazi terror just before the war broke out. Now stunningly—impossibly—it appears that someone from that long-lost past may have returned. With the help of a recovered-memory therapist, Paul Radbuka has recently learned his true identity. But is he who he claims to be? Or is he a cunning impostor who has usurped someone else’s history . . . a history Lotty has tried to forget for over fifty years? As a frightened V.I. watches her friend unravel, she sets out to help in the only way she can: by investigating Radbuka’s past. Already working on a difficult case for a poor family cheated of their life insurance, she tries to balance Lotty’s needs with her client’s, only to find that both are spiraling into a whirlpool of international crime that stretches from Switzerland and Germany to Chicago’s South Side. As the atrocities of the past reach out to engulf the living, V.I. struggles to decide whose memories of a terrible war she can trust, and moves closer to a chilling realization of the truth—a truth that almost destroys her oldest friend.

Elle, c''est Warshawski. Victoria Iphigenia Warshawski, mais elle préfère qu''on l''appelle V.I. Une détective avec de grandes ambitions : restaurer un peu de justice et d''équité dans sa bonne ville de Chicago... Le jour où elle manque de rouler sur le corps mutilé d''une jeune femme évadée de prison, et que le cadavre se volatilise de la morgue peu après, Vic décide de se passer de client : cette fois, elle enquêtera pour son propre compte. Est-ce cette initiative qui lui vaut son arrestation et les intimidations policières dont elle fait l''objet ? Quel rapport l''inconnue sur la route pourrait-elle bien avoir avec un studio de cinéma aussi puissant que Global Entertainment, ou une entreprise de conseil en sécurité aussi renommée que Carnifice ? Une chose est sûre : au royaume des grands requins, les tenues haute couture risquent d''être tout aussi nécessaires à Vic que son fidèle Smith & Wesson...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “When it comes to creating character, evoking place, and writing crackling and convincing dialogue, Sara Paretsky has no peer—and Hard Time proves it once again.”—Chicago Tribune “Terrific . . . expertly plotted . . . This book [is] her best.”—The New York Times Book Review In an instant, the lives of two women collided. One was behind the wheel of a Trans Am she liked to drive too fast. The other was lying in the road, dying an agonizing death. When Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski got out of her car to look at the woman she almost hit, she began a long, harrowing descent into a world of shadowy secrets and tangled lives—and into the darkest heart of her city. In Hard Time, which heralds the triumphant return of the much-loved heroine V.I. Warshawski, Sara Paretsky revisits the gritty urban landscape she illuminates with brilliant compassion and vivid color. For as V.I. unravels the mystery of a battered and discarded woman, she moves through circles of the rich and the troubled, into the bitter home of a powerful Chicago family, into the pampered world of a TV star, and behind the razor wire of a women’s prison. What V.I. finds is a web of conspiracy—and explosive secrets hidden in the darkest places of all. . . . ”You’ll feel handcuffed to this book until you’ve finished—probably at 3 a.m.”—The Denver Post

Stubbornness has landed private eye V.I. Warshawski in big trouble at her Chicago office. With her grand old Loop building set to be razed, she''s become a hold-out tenant amid frayed wiring and scary, empty corridors. Then she finds a homeless woman with three kids in the basement, and before she can rescue them, they disappear. Worst of all, she''s been implicated in a murder--after the body of Deirdre Messenger, a prominent lawyer''s wife, turns up sprawled across her desk. V.I., who had volunteered with Deirdre at a women''s shelter, suspects her death is linked to a case of upper-class domestic abuse so slickly concealed that the police refuse to believe it. Increasingly at odds with the cops, V.I. is blindly plunging ahead after the truth. And her path may lead to corruption at the highest levels.or deep into the abandoned tunnels beneath Chicago''s streets, where secrets are hiding in the dark like a child''s--or V.I.''s--worst nightmare.

Crime is common ground for the twenty-one women writers in this extraordinary collection of contemporary mystery fiction. The voices here include professional crime solvers who take you from the mean streets of V.I. Warshawski''s Chicago in a case of music and murder... to the California freeway where Kinsey Millhone''s beloved VW skids into a shooting... to the gang-held turf of Sharon says mum''s the word. And then there are mothers, grandmothers, battered wives, and social workers -- ordinary women in extraordinary situations whose voices reveal contemporary life as seen through a woman''s eye. From the opening tale of a girl down-and-out in London and what she steals from a corpse... to the final story of a summer vacation in the Berkshires, complete with romance and sudden death... this unique collection brings us great mystery writing that engages both our intellects and our hearts. "From the Paperback edition.

Kriminalroman.