Synopses & Reviews
Chicago politics-past, present, and future-take center stage in New York Times-bestselling author Sara Paretsky's brilliant new V. I. Warshawski novel.
Chicago's unique brand of ball is sixteen-inch slow pitch, played in leagues all over the city for more than a century. But in politics, in business, and in law enforcement, the game is hardball.
When V. I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who's been missing for four decades, a search that she figured would be futile becomes lethal. Old skeletons from the city's racially charged history, as well as haunting family secrets-her own and those of the elderly sisters who hired her-rise up to brush her back from the plate with a vengeance. A young cousin whom she's never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign; a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence; and on the city's South Side, people spit when she shows up. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, V. I. still takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.
Review
Praise for Sara Paretsky BREAKDOWN
“Riveting…Warshawski once again proves a dogged champion for the truth at any cost.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Both Paretsky and she sharp-tongued justice-seeker, V.I. Warshawski, remain formidable in the masterfully suspenseful fifteenth novel in this superb and adored Chicago-set series. … V.I. reigns as crime fictions spiky, headstrong warrior woman of conscience, and Paretsky, classy champion of the powerless, has never been more imaginative, rueful, transfixing, and righteous.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Plotted with all Paretskys customary generosity, this standout entry harnesses her heroines righteous anger to some richly deserving targets, all linked together in a truly amazing finale.”— Kirkus (starred review)
“What really matters in a Sara Paretsky mystery are the crimes behind the crimes ¬- the corrupt politics, the class divisions, the economic inequities, the dirty business practices and all the other injustices that incite the wicked deeds we love to read about. Breakdown takes its first crack at a soft target: a cult series of lurid vampire novels that sends a group of impressionable pre-teenage girls into a graveyard to perform a giddy initiation ritual for their book club. But once V.I. Warshawski, the intrepid private eye who sees herself as “a street fighter, a product of the mills and ethnic wars of Chicagos Steel City,” has rescued the girls from the trauma of discovering the murder victim, the true villains come into sharper focus.”—Marilyn Stasio,The New York Times
“One of the many pleasures of Sara Paretskys V.I. Warshawski novels is that the sharp-tongued, short-tempered detective often seems to be following clues that lead not just to the heart of whatever mystery is at hand, but also into the red-hot center of the zeitgeist itself… the dialogue is sharp, the satire of politics and media intuitions downrightbiting, and the descriptions hilarious.”— L.A. Times
Synopsis
The long-awaited return of V.I. Warshawski Chicago politics-past, present, and future-take center stage in New York Times bestselling author Sara Peretsky's complex and compelling new V.I. Warshawski novel. When Warshawski is asked to find a man who's been missing for four decades, a search that she figured would be futile becomes lethal. Old skeletons from the city's racially charged history, as well as haunting family secrets-her own and those of the elderly sisters who hired her-rise up with a vengeance.
About the Author
Sara Paretsky is the author of nineteen books, including her renowned V. I. Warshawski novels. She was named 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and is also the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award given by the British Crime Writers Association. She lives in Chicago.