Fire Sale (V.I. Warshawski Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

Sara Paretsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2006 | Series: V.I. Warshawski Novels

A conscience can weigh a PI down more than the heaviest firearm—and get her into more trouble too. It’s that nagging conscience that makes V. I. Warshawski agree to fill in as coach for the girls’ basketball team at her South Chicago alma mater—which in turn leads her to the headquarters of By-Smart, the global retail empire where V. I. hopes to get some desperately needed funds for the struggling squad. But conscience seems to be in short supply at By-Smart… with the exception of Billy Bysen, the earnest teenage grandson of the chain’s gruff, tightfisted founder. And when Billy disappears—along with a mysterious document much desired by By-Smart’s management team—V. I. is hurled onto a twisted, body-strewn path that runs through Chicago’s dirtiest places and reveals some of its dirtiest secrets.…

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nobody does physical danger and personal pain better than Paretsky, and in many ways the audio version of her 12th V.I. Warshawski mystery captures those qualities more effectively than the book. It helps considerably that Burr makes us believe almost instantly that she is the thorny Chicago private eye who has never really escaped her rough South Side roots even though she now usually works in more upscale neighborhoods. Burr catches all the vocal nuances—the tough and touching young female basketball players from V.I.'s old high school; the black cop ex-lover and the foreign correspondent seriously wounded in Afghanistan who has taken his place; and V.I.'s crotchety, well-meaning old neighbor. As Warshawski looks for a corporate sponsor for the basketball team she has agreed to coach, a flag factory explodes and its owner is killed, a young man from a giant discount store family disappears with one of the basketball players—and once again life for V.I. becomes extremely complicated, not to mention painful.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Long-running mystery series have a way of losing readers over time, but anyone who has drifted away from Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski should promptly return to the fold. The thirteenth Warshawski novel is one of the best, primarily because it takes V. I. back to her South Chicago roots, filling in fascinating backstory on the sleuth's evolution and effectively utilizing both the city's broad-shouldered past and its radically globalized present. V. I. returns to her old neighborhood--in the far southeast corner of Chicago--to fill in for her former high-school basketball coach, who is fighting cancer. Confronted by a dilapidated gym and a team made up mainly of gangbangers and single mothers, V. I. feels overwhelmed--for about five minutes, before she reacts with typical ferocity, driving her players and doggedly pursuing corporate funding for the team. It's the latter that takes her to By-Smart, South Chicago's main employer, run by a bigoted, born-again billionaire. Soon V. I. is caught in the middle of a Romeo and Juliet romance between the son of Mr. By-Smart and the daughter of a Latina single mother, whose employer's factory has just been destroyed by fire. Paretsky has never been better than she is here at evoking a sense of place--abandoned and rusting steel mills casting long shadows over the difficult lives of largely immigrant families. Nothing seems forced as Paretsky plays socioeconomic realities against a universal story of passion and jealousy, building the plot from the marshy ground up and allowing Chicago to muscle its way into a costarring role. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Signet; Edition Unstated edition (July 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 045121899x
• ISBN-13: 978-0451218995
• ASIN: 045121899X
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sara Paretsky is the award-winning creator of the V I Warshawski detective novels. When Sara introduced V I in Indemnity Only in 1982, she revolutionized the mystery novel. By creating a female investigator who uses her wits as well a her fists, Sara challenged a genre in which women were traditionally either vamps or victims.

V I is the quintessential urban woman. She grew up in the shadow of the old steel mills on Chicago's Southeast side and knows her way around every alley in town. She's a street fighter, a singer, a bit of a clothes horse, and a woman of great intensity and passion.

So how much like V I is her creator? They certainly come from very different places. Sara grew up in rural Kansas where she attended a two-room school. She continues to believe the high point of her life came at the age of twelve when she was picked to play third base for the Kaw Valley District 95 baseball team.

Bleeding Kansas, Sara's 14th novel, is set in the part of the Kaw River Valley where Sara grew up.

Sara first came to Chicago in 1966 to do community service work in the same neighborhood where Martin Luther King was organizing. It was a time of fierce passions in the city and in the country as people fought over racial justice, the rights and wrongs of the war in Vietnam, and women's rights. Sara has always felt that that summer changed her life forever, and when she finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas, she came back to make Chicago her home. Some of the history of that summer is recounted in her essay collection, Writing in an Age of Silence.

Like V I, Sara likes to sing, in an amateur way, has a hopeless passion for the Cubs, loves Italian shoes'and is obsessed by the search for the perfect cappuccino, so much so that she even went to cappuccino school.

In other academic ventures, Sara received a PhD in American History and an MBA from the University of Chicago. In 1976, she married physics professor Courtenay Wright. The two live in the city of Chicago with their wonder dog Callie. Their lives are made brighter by their adored granddaughter, Maia.

Sara shares V I's passion for social justice. She founded Sisters in Crime in 1986 to support women readers and writers in the mystery world. To give back to the community, Paretsky established the Sara and Two C-Dogs Foundation, which primarily supports girls and women in the arts, letters, and sciences. She has endowed several scholarships at the University of Kansas, and has mentored students in Chicago's inner city schools. She serves on the advisory boards of Literature for All of Us, a literacy group for teen moms, and Thresholds, which serves Chicago's mentally-ill homeless.

Sara has received numerous awards, including the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers Association, the Gold Dagger for best novel for her book Blacklist, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from several different universities. Sara's books have been translated into almost thirty languages.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still the Best in her Field., November 2, 2005

By 

N. Richardson "nano" (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fire Sale (V.I. Warshawski Novels) (Hardcover)

Sara Paretsky, along with Marcia Muller, created a subgenre in the mystery field with her series of Warshawski novels. And from the beginning, she stood apart from the rest by looking at the important issues of our time, framing them in the lives of ordinary people, while using the conventions of the genre to hook readers into compelling plots, dialogue and...suspense and action.

Like P. Schumacher, I have often compared her to Dickens because of her ability to create fabulous characters (including some terrific villains) while making complex political issues accessible to people who otherwise are turned off to politics.

In taking on the Walmartization of America, she has plenty of material. And she explores the issue from a variety of angles, including from the point of view of people forced by circumstance to be trapped in chronic underemployment. At the same time, she shows how the predatory practices of BigBox America destroys communities, including small business.

Any she does this while weaving a darn good story.

However, I would suggest the reader avoid at all costs the Brilliance Audio edition as voiced by the worst narrator working in AudioBooks today. Sandra Burr, despite the "spotlight" reviewer's opinion is totally wrong from this or any book for adults. She has no understanding of the characters or the book's subject matter, and her characterizations truly hurt the book. She is distracting when she gives a 19 year old young man the voice of a 12 year old girl....and everytime she does dialogue, my immediate impulse was to to track to down Paretsky's agent and demand she renegotiate her contract with Brilliance.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paretsky is better than ever, July 4, 2005

By 

Mary McCarthy - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fire Sale (V.I. Warshawski Novels) (Hardcover)

I don't know about you, but I've had some disappointments of late with some of my favorite mystery authors. Let's not name names. You know you agree with me: they're writing too many books and putting too little into them.

But not Sara Paretsky! I've been a fan for years, and the V.I. books just keep getting better. This one is well-written with a great plot line. It's a treat you owe yourself for the heat of this summer.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Action, Low on Human Interest, October 17, 2006

By 

Lois Lain (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Fire Sale (V.I. Warshawski Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

Paretsky is the master of the modern female private eye, and V.I. Warshawski set the tone for many of the female detectives who followed -- Kinsey Millhone, Sheriff Joanna Brady, etc. The latest in Paretsky's series offers readers a strong plot with vivid action scenes, and a nice mellowing of V.I.'s personality. The early books in the series were so tainted with her anger at life in general that I found them difficult to read. Now, V.I., seems to have sheared off some of her rough edges, leaving behind a lot of the "tough gal" persona that flavored the early works.

This book has many strengths, including memorable characters, much action, a strong setting, and seamless prose. However, I wonder if Paretsky is getting tired as V.I. is mellowing? The plot was a bit shaky (V.I. had a bit too much of a free pass into offices that no one would allow her to gain access to, and her reasons for becoming involved in the shady business of the South Side were tenuous at best). And many characters are thinly drawn caricatures (the Poor Little Rich Boy in love with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the minority mother who works hard to keep off welfare, the heartless businessmen who cry "family values" but who will do anything to stay ahead, etc.). And even many of the old standbys (Lottie, Mr. Contreras, Conrad) seemed a bit tired of their roles, just popping on stage and then off again with no emotion or involvement.

Overall, I rate this book highly because of its action and writing. But Paretsky may have to start relying on real human interaction for interest, instead of just sending V.I. on another trip to the emergency room.