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The astonishing new V. I. Warshawski
novel from one of America's foremost writers of crime fiction.
V.I. Warshawski may have left her old
South Chicago neighborhood, but she learns that she cannot
escape it. When V.I. takes over coaching duties of the girls'
basketball team at her former high school, she faces an ill-equipped,
ragtag group of gangbangers, fundamentalists, and teenage
moms who inevitably draw the detective into their family woes.
Through young Josie Dorrado, V.I. meets
the girl's mother, who voices her worries about sabotage in
the little flag manufacturing plant where she works. The biggest
employer on the South Side, discount-store behemoth By-Smart,
pays even less, and Ms. Dorrado doesn't know how she'll support
her four children if the flag plant shuts down.
The elder Dorrado's fears are realized
when the plant explodes; V.I. is injured and the owner is
killed. As V.I. begins to investigate, she finds herself onfronting
the Bysen family, who own the By-Smart company. Founder William
"Buffalo Bill" Bysen, now in his eighties, has four sons who
quarrel with each other and with him; the oldest, "Young Mr.
William," is close to sixty and furious that his father doesn't
cede more power to him. And then there's "Billy the Kid,"
Young Mr. William's nineteen-year-old son, whose Christian
idealism puts him on a collision course with his father, his
grandfather, and the company as a whole.
When Billy runs away with Josie Dorrado,
V.I. is squeezed between the needs of two very different families.
As she tries to find the errant teenagers, and to track down
a particularly cruel murderer, her own life is almost forfeit
in the swamps that lie under the city of Chicago.
Sara Paretsky is the author of
twelve previous books, including ten V. I. Warshawski novels.
She is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond
Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime
Writers' Association.
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