Secondhand Sleuth

I started reading Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski series because my mom was a fan. I particularly remember when she read Tunnel Vision (1994) and was fascinated with the lower bowels of Chicago, a network of utility and freight tunnels beneath the Loop. I have her copy of the short story collection Windy City Blues (1995), the last of Sara’s books to be published before Mom’s death. Once I made Chicago my home in the late 90s, I was even more interested in reading this series, full of real locations in the city and suburbs.

V.I. is a hard-working detective specializing in financial crime but is frequently sucked into murder cases, where she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty or to risk her physical safety. She pisses off the powerful and comes to the rescue of the under-privileged. She comes from a working class family (a Chicago cop and an Italian immigrant music teacher) and has a close circle of friends including Lottie, a doctor who has a clinic for the poor; Sal, the owner of a West Loop bar; Murray, a reporter and sometimes ally; and her cantankerous neighbor Mr. Contreras, a war veteran and retired pipe fitter. Like Sara, V.I. is a lover of quality espresso and a dog owner, and can frequently be seen with Peppy and Mitch running and swimming on the shores of Lake Michigan or investigating some woodland swamp.

Sara began writing in the late 70s and debuted her feminist detective in Indemnity Only (1982). At the time, there weren’t other fictional female detectives like V.I. These are not cozy mysteries (of which I am a fan) but they are not the traditional hard-boiled pocket fiction of Chandler and Spillane, with their one-dimensional female victims and villains. V.I. is a complex woman, who tackles thorny social issues in every novel, and often finds love only to have her dangerous career get in the way. Sara is an award-winning trail-blazer of crime fiction and is a founder of Sisters In Crime, a collective of writers dedicated to inclusion in the genre. There is a very good overview of Sara’s writing career in this Chicago Public Library blog. (I love that it has “kickass” in the URL, likely the original headline.) You can also learn more in the movie Women of Mystery.

I have had multiple opportunities to hear Sara read and sign my books—twice at Women and Children First in Andersonville, and once at the defunct Centuries and Sleuths in Forest Park, where we had cake for her husband’s 90th birthday. She has always been kind and generous to her audience, and is a great performer. Sara is also active politically and shares many of my views, so I have engaged with her online and attended some of the same marches in Chicago. Her activism goes back to the 60s when she first came to Chicago from Kansas. Sara writes about writing and activism in Writing In an Age of Silence (2007) and on her blog.

My quest to re-read the entire series took two years but I finally did it and my reward at the end was reading Pay Dirt (2024).

Pay Dirt by Sara Paretsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Loved V.I.’s return to Lawrence, Kansas where everyone is talking about the detective from Chicago. Between scrapes she’s always in search of clean clothes and a great cortado. The context of the history of the region and the reality of the transition from family farms to corporate development is woven through the murder mystery with care. I always appreciate the deep research that the author puts into each novel. I am a longtime reader of V.I. going back to the 1990s and I re-read the entire series before letting myself start this one. It was worth the wait!

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I’m very excited to read Sara’s latest book, Bad Company (2026), which is not about V.I. but about an older ex-CIA agent. I applied to be an ARC reader, which I have never done before, but am excited to try. I will be proud to support my favorite author! And don’t worry, she’s already started on V.I. #23.

In the meantime, Jim started listening to the audiobooks and got hooked on the series too! (He is very proud of the fact that Sara consulted with one of his friends during research for a book, I think about bank security.) He chose to read them in an interesting order so I can’t wait for him to read the early books. Then we’ll have to rewatch the V.I. Warshawski (1991) movie which I think holds up well.

As for me, I recently had my first cortado, and it was delicious.