LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Like Sara Paretsky; read Tara Moss.
Alongside Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller, Paretsky created the modern archetype of the modern female detective: V.I. Warshawski roams the mean Chicago streets with a feminist sense of righteousness, anger and fallibility and has inspired countless other authors and characters. Tara Moss’ Mak Vanderwall is a more contemporary Australian counterpart, feisty, indomitable, with both a troubled past and a present full of action and suspense.
Recommended:
Sara Paretsky - HARDBALL. Asked to find a man who’s been missing for 40 years, VI retraces his steps to the civil rights struggles of the 60s and uncovers her usual nest of vipers and personal family secrets.
Tara Moss - HIT. Glamorous Mak Vanderwall now works part-time for a Sydney PI but has a knack for bending the law in her investigations. Which is no help in maintaining personal relationships and her latest case takes her into dangerous corners and streets.
Maxim Jakubowski
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Hardball Synopsis
One of the Sunday Times 100 Best Crime Novels and Thrillers since 1945
When V.I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who's been missing for four decades, a search that she thought would be futile turns lethal. Old skeletons from the city's racially charged history rise up to force her back with a vengeance - 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. The elderly sisters who hired her are also keeping important information to themselves.
Then V.I. finds that her family is keeping secrets of their own. A young cousin whom she's never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign, but disappears under mysterious circumstances. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, deception and corruption following her at every step, V.I. finds all her certainties under threat, but takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.
About This Edition
Press Reviews
Sara Paretsky Press Reviews
'Sara Paretsky is on top form ... HARDBALL is a haunting novel, skilfully combining power politics and intensely personal events'
Joan Smith, Sunday Times
'Within a racial melting pot, Paretsky hits her own personal best; HARDBALL takes the thinking woman's detective to a new level of excellence'
Financial Times Weekend
'HARDBALL is a big, chewy, old-fashioned yarn about a P.I. looking into a sprawling, decade-spanning web of police corruption. But when it's this entertaining, there's nothing wrong with that at all'
Metro
'She is writing with the kind of passion for social justice that inspired Chandler and Hammett ... a narrative as gripping as it is emotionally wrenching.'
Joan Smith, The Sunday Times
'A strong, well-constructed novel, firmly founded in Chicago and its politics, past and present. Paretsky's plot combines racism, police corruption and family secrets - including Warshawski's - and the lost idealism of the 1960s provides a haunting backdrop. Some crime series grow stale over time, but there's no sign of fatigue here. This is partly because the recurring characters continue to develop and engage the reader, and partly because of the moral intelligence that informs the writing.'
Spectator
'Details are so rich and the dialogue so snappy that the mystery whizzes by.'
Guardian
'Packed with social themes and moral energy, held together by humor, compassion and sheer feistiness, this novel shows why Paretsky and her heroine are such enduring figure in American detective fiction'
Publishers Weekly (starred)
'With the creation of V.I. Warshawski, Sara Paretsky did more than anyone to change the face of contemporary women's fiction.'
Express on Sunday
'Tough, complex and moving, Paretsky is still at the top of her crowded genre.'
Bookseller
'The thing about Sara Paretsky is, she's tough ... she doesn't flinch from examining old social injustices others might find too shameful (and too painful) to dig up ... it's a distinct pleasure to hear her unapologetically strident voice once again'
New York Times
Author
About Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky was brought up in rural Kansas. After a variety of jobs ranging from dishwashing to marketing she now writes full time. She is a founder and past President of Sisters in Crime, an advocacy group for women in the thriller field. She lives in Chicago with a University of Chicago physicist and their golden retriever.
Photograph © Steven E. Gross
Maxim Jakubowski's view on V.I. WARSHAWSKI...
Launched in 1982 by Sara Paretsky in INDEMNITY ONLY, Vic Warshawski is the toughest gal on the Chicago block, a female private eye who could outfight Philip Marlowe and his kind, as well as outsmart them. Pigheaded and socially conscious, she is the queen of hard-boiled.
V.I. Warshawski series:
1. Indemnity Only
2. Deadlock
3. Killing Orders
4. Bitter Medicine
5. Blood Shot
6. Burn Marks
7. Guardian Angel
8. Tunnel Vision
9. Hard Time
10. Total Recall
11. Blacklist
12. Fire Sale
13. Hardball
More About Sara Paretsky
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