Sara Paretsky is a trailblazer. For too long, most private eye series were men and the only roles women played were murder victim, seductress, or virgin.
But in 1982, Paretsky brought V. I. Warshawski into our lives, a female private eye in Chicago. She’s won multiple awards including the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement from the British Crime Writers as well as the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master award.
Oh, and Kathleen Turner played V.I. Warshawski in the 1991 comedy V.I. Warshawski.
She has both an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and many honorary degrees.
But that’s not all that Paretsky has done for the world of mystery. In 1986, she founded Sisters in Crime, a writing association with the original mission to “to represent and advocate for women crime writers.”
Now the organization aims to create “a vibrant, inclusive community.”
On top of it all, she’s passionate about social justice. In a 2022 CrimeReads article, she talked about how she came to Chicago “in response to a nationwide call for college students to work in the Civil Rights movement here.”
That desire for justice has not diminished in time; she’s volunteered and supported causes related to under-resourced students and people who are homeless.
She’s also established the Sara & Two C-Dogs Foundation to “help organizations dedicated to supporting women and girls,” which has funded organizations like Planned Parenthood, Literature for All of Us, and Girls in the Game.
She wrote in that 2022 article:
“It’s not that I want to write social commentary. I set my books in the world of white collar crime because I’d worked in management, and I knew that milieu in a way I don’t know the back alleys and docklands that someone like Elmore Leonard covered. I felt passionately about the subject as well, partly because of my volunteer summer all those years ago. Street crime is nasty and frightening. It damages lives, but it doesn’t do the grand-scale destruction that white collar crime can.”
With that illustrious career and passion for social justice, we’ve put together a list of where to start with her incredible works.
Where to Start with Sara Paretsky
Indemnity Only
For those of you who love your private eye novels, V. I. should be next on your TBR list. V.I. is a nonsense private eye who wants to see justice in the world focusing on the world of white collar crime.
She’s no Miss Marple; sitting still and knitting is not her idea of fun. She’s got elements of Philip Marlowe, especially her sense of humor. As a lifelong Chicagoan, it’s also fun to see all the good and bad in the city come out in the novels.
In the first book of the 22-book series (so far) and countless short stories, she gets a rather unusual case: a man who claims to be John Thayer asks her to find his son’s girlfriend.
But she soon discovers that her client was not the real John Thayer and the man’s son, Peter, has been murdered. Now she has to figure out who the man was, why he wanted to find Peter’s girlfriend, and who really killed Peter.
It’s the first in the 22 book series (so far) with several short stories; the most recent book Pay Dirt came out in 2024.
In a recent article, Paretsky wrote “V. I. Warshawski becomes not just my voice in the world, but the expresser of my own conflicts over morality.
Writing in an Age of Silence
For those who want more about Paretsky’s extraordinary life and philosophy, this book brings together an account of her life as well as her examination of freedom of speech and civil liberties.
She starts growing up in Kansas with her parents’ troubled marriage and inferiority complex due to her gender. She also explores the political events around her from the Red Scare and rise of religious fundamentalism.
She discusses her civil rights work in the 1960s in Chicago, which was a hotbed of violence.
She also explores the influence of hard-boiled detective writers, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and her desire to create V.I. Warshawski
Bleeding Kansas
This standalone fiction book with elements of mystery in it takes place in 21st century Kansas. The book explores the widening rift between two families on the land that had seen massacres and anti-slavery activism.
The Greillers lean to the left while the Schapens lean right-wing fundamentalism. But the foundation of both families begins to crumble when the Grellier’s son dies in the Iraq war and dark secrets on the Schapens seek to come out.
In the middle, Gina Haring, a member of the Fremantles family, moves into the family mansion and a forbidden love blossoms threatening all of them.
It’s fiction with some mystery elements.
Ghost Country: A Novel
In another standalone novel, Paretsky turns her gaze to the world of homeless women in Chicago.
She said she was “inspired” by seeing Mozart’s Magic Flute where women are punished for not conforming to gender expectations. She wanted to write a different narrative but didn’t know how to proceed.
But she realized that more and more people were reporting divine signs, such as appearances of the Virgin Mary or crying statues.
In a letter to the reader, she explained,
“I decided the time had come to recast my railings against Mozart onto the streets of Chicago with real people (including a failed diva to placate Mozart’s ghost), rich and poor, whose lives have unraveled.”
In the book, three women come from different backgrounds, one is an opera diva, another woman sees signs of the Virgin Mary, and a girl who has been thrown out of her wealthy family.
Before entirely giving into despair they meet Hector Tammuz who wants to help these women and a mysterious homeless woman named Starr who will impact their lives in unexpected ways.
It’s more fiction than mystery compared to her other works, but an important story that needed to be told
Don't Miss These Other Notable Sara Paretsky Classics!
Burn Marks
Private Investigator V.I. "Vic" Warshawski is on the hunt for a serial arsonist after the hotel her alcoholic aunt was staying at is burned down.
As Vic starts receiving threatening messages and someone is murdered, she must traverse the dangerous world of Chicago's homeless population and the even more dangerous world of the city's elite.
Guardian Angel
V.I "Vic" Warshawski has her hands full looking into the disappearance of a friend of her neighbor's and keeping watch over another vulnerable elderly neighbor.
When the neighbor's friend turns up dead and the old woman ends up in the history, Vic gets involved in a web of organized labor, money, and politics—and finds the case is more personal than she could've thought.
Words, Works, & Ways of Knowing
Before Sara Paretsky was a crime writer, she earned a PhD in history from the University of Chicago.
In this early work, she analyzes the ways theologians at a seminary near Boston sought to defend and adjust their Calvinist beliefs as new scientific knowledge emerged in the 19th century, an interesting case from history with relevance today.
Featured photo: Wikimedia Commons
