Who is Sara Paretsky

"It takes a lot of chocolate to get me through a book!"
"Never underestimate a man's ability to underestimate a woman".
This quote of V.I. Warshawski is just classic!

Sara Paretsky was instrumental in gaining respect for women mystery writers. It was evident that women crime novelists weren't getting the same reviews or publicity or accolades that were being awarded to male mystery writers. So she formed the Sisters in Crime world-wide support group. There are 3400 members ranging from "authors, readers, publishers,agents, booksellers and librarians bound by our affection for the mystery genre and our support of women who write mysteries."

Sara Paretsky knows how to keep her readers poised for the next plot.
Her stories grab you from the first page and keep you engaged until the end. And there's always that feeling that there's more to be told.

Sara Paretsky isn't just a writer - she's a concerned citizen, too. She has been a tutor and a mentor. She's concerned about poverty, about discrimination, about the effects of war. She is involved in her community. She makes a difference.

Sara Paretsky LOVES the Chicago Cubs. She and her heroine V.I. experience all the highs and lows of the baseball season depending upon how the "cubbies" are doing.

Sara Paretsky loves chocolate! She says, "It takes a lot of chocolate to get me through a book." Gotta love that!

Keep in touch by subscribing to Sara's newsletter. There will be a short note from Sara and notices of her upcoming events and book signings.

Excerpts from the website: About V.I.

"V.I. grew up under the shadow of the old steel mills on Chicago's South Side. Her father was a cop; her mother a refugee from Mussolini's Italy. Her mother had aspired to an operatic career but ended up giving music lessons to neighbors' children. She died when V.I. was not quite 16, a loss that still haunts the detective. The eight red Venetian wine glasses that her mother brought with her from her home town in Orvieto are V.I.'s most prized possessions."

"...She drinks Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey and red wine...attended the University of Chicago on an athletic scholarship, and went to law school there as well..."

Here's a cool picture of Sara Paretsky jumping rope with a group of Chicago school girls. It's posted with more pictures on Sara's official website.

The girls in this photo all belong to a program that's close to Sara Paretsky's heart. It's called Girls in the Game which is a club for inner-city Chicago girls to play sports which, in turn, teaches them self-respect, gives them self-confidence and teaches them team building.

There is no recess in most Chicago schools, these days, and most of the extracurricular sports programs available are geared to boys, only.

This is the only chance that most school girls in Chicago have to play sports.

Sara Paretsky is a passionate writer about passionate causes.

When I first started reading her V.I. Warshawski novels, I didn't know a thing about Paretsky's personal life. I just knew that she could turn out an enthralling piece of fiction.

From her first summer in Chicago as a college student working with kids and trying to change ideas about civil rights, she knew that she couldn't live anywhere else but Chicago.

In an interview with The Progressive, she says,"...It also made me see what the stakes were in the civil rights movement. And it made me see what real hatred was like and the forms that it took. But it also made me understand how powerless ordinary people feel in their lives."

There is a wonderful review of Sara Paretsky's life in the U.K. publication "Spectator" by author P.D. James. You can read it at this link:
Fearless Freedom Fighter

It speaks of her difficult childhood in rural Kansas where she and her family were the only Jews in a mostly Christian, white population.

Although her parents were highly educated, Sara, being the only girl, was denied the educational opportunities that were granted to her five brothers. It's not surprising, then, that she became a champion for women's rights, social justice and was vehemently opposed to the Vietnam war.

Paretsky began writing at a very early age. She has said that she can't remember a time when she couldn't read. But she wrote privately and not until she was past the age of 30 did she consider writing as a career.*

Lucky for us that she did!

*The Spectator, 5/24/2007

Hard Time
by Sara Paretsky

Read this synopsis of Hard Time, one of Sara Paretsky's most popular novels,.

It's been called her best work since Tunnel Vision.

You can find this as well as excerpts from her other novels at the Sara Paretsky official website.

Tunnel Vision
by Sara Paretsky

Click here Tunnel Vision to read an excerpt from this exciting novel. Once again, V.I. Warshawski is pitted against the "powers that be" in Chicago.

You won't be able to put it down!

Blacklist
by Sara Paretsky

Click here Blacklist to read an excerpt from this book. It's one of my favorite V.I. Warshawski novels.

This is Sara Paretsky's latest work set in the small town in rural Kansas where she was raised. It's a novel loosely based on her early life there.

( And V. I. Warshawski is nowhere in sight.)

Bleeding Kansas
by Sara Paretsky

Writing in an Age of Silence
by Sara Paretsky

This book is not a novel. Writing In An Age Of Silence, is a non-fiction work which chronicles the events leading to Sara Paretsky's journey as a writer and why she speaks so compellingly about civil liberties through her private investigator heroine, V.I. Warshawski.

You can find this as well as excerpts from her other novels at the Sara Paretsky official website.

Hard Time
by Sara Paretsky

Guardian Angel
by Sara Paretsky

Bitter Medicine
by Sara Paretsky

Tunnel Vision
bySara Paretsky

Sara Paretsky Collection:
Bitter Medicine, Total Recall and Blacklist
(V.I. Warshawski)

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The photographs in this lens are used with permission from Sara Paretsky and her official website. However, this lens is my creation and must not be copied.