Legendary detective V.I. Warshawski uncovers a mystery with roots dating back to the Civil War in this edge-of-your-seat thriller from New York Times bestseller Sara Paretsky.
V .I. Warshawski is famous for her cool under fire, her intelligence, her humor, her unflinching courage, and her love of good coffee. But even the strongest people sometimes need a break to recharge, so her friends send her to Kansas for a weekend of college basketball where Angela, one of her protégées, is playing. And that’s where trouble finds V.I.
Sabrina, one of Angela’s roommates, disappears and V.I. agrees to try to find her. Finding a missing person in a city where she knows few people and doesn’t have her trusted contacts is hard, but not as hard as the brutally negative reaction to the detective from some of the locals. When V.I. finds Sabrina close to death in a remote house, she lands herself in the FBI’s crosshairs and faces a violent online backlash. The men running the county’s opioid distribution are also not happy.
Discovering a dead body in the same house a few days later, V.I. is pitched headlong into a local land-use battle with roots going back to the Civil War. She finds that today’s combatants are just as willing as opponents in the 1860s to kill to settle their differences.
V.I.’s survival depends on keeping one step ahead of players in a game she never intended to play, before the clock runs down.
“Sara Paretsky’s legendary P.I. is at the top of her game.” — Tess Gerritsen
“Sara Paretsky is a legend . . . If you haven’t read her yet, now is the time.” — Harlan Coben
“V.I. Warshawski is one of my all-time favorite investigators. Doesn’t get any better than this!” — Lisa Gardner
“An author of matchless intelligence, craft, and power. This is why Sara Paretsky reigns as one of the all-time greats.” — Karin Slaughter
"Paretsky’s phenomenal gifts for significant and riveting stories, lacerating dialogue, rich psychology, and barbed humor reach tornadic force." — Booklist on Pay Dirt (starred review)
“Legendary V.I. Warshawski is as dogged and ferocious as ever. So is Sara Paretsky, who is at the top of her crime novel game.”
— C.J. Box
“Among today’s P.I.’s, nobody comes close to Warshawski.” — Publishers Weekly
“Revel in the superb pacing, the well-developed characters and the crisp dialogue from one of the most consistently excellent writers in the genre.” — BookPage
"History buffs will appreciate Paretsky’s exploration of Kansas’s violent past, while V.I. fans will be eager to read the latest in the award-winning series (after Overboard)." — Library Journal
“Chicago’s V.I. Warshawski is on top form.” — Seattle Review of Books
“A proper hero for these times . . . To us, V.I. is perfect.” — Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review,on Dead Land
“Sara Paretsky’s gloriously kick-ass private eye, V.I. ‘Vic’ Warshawski, is . . . the definition of perfection in the genre.” — Washington Poston Dead Land
"Swift and superb." — Seattle Times on Dead Land
