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Fire Sale

By: Sara Paretsky
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
ISBN: 0340839104
ISBN-13: 9780340839102
Released: 05 Oct 2006
RRP: £6.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Good Novel, Great VI Novel - By: Stacey Mitchell, 26 Oct 2006
Sara Paretsky continues her excellent detective novel series by sending her lead character, VI Warshawski, back to her South Chicago roots. VI begins coaching a girls' basketballl team at her old school & becomes involved in the intrigue surrounding a well-known superstore chain & a flag factory that is being vandalised & intimidated. VI once again takes her hits & injuries, but keeps her eye on the case when one of her team & the rich heir to the superstore chain go missing.

Paretsky has once again produced an excellent novel, & has stuck to the things she knows best - getting VI in & out of trouble. Paretsky has very strong political views & these show here, but don't overwhelm the story.

This book is an excellent addition to the VI Warshawski series, but is also readable as a standalone novel. well worth the effort.
V.I. scores another hit - By: Fiona Kellington, 10 Apr 2006
I'm a big fan of V.I. Warshawski & this, her latest outing, is her best. The seamy underbelly of South Chicago with its struggling families, lack of resources (social & crimefighting) & dominance by a ruthless family owned retail conglomerate is brought fully to life by Sara Paretsky's deft characterisations. V.I. remains a very human heroine and, despite surviving some nasty injuries in pretty much every book, does appear to be aging both physicallly & in wisdom as the series progresses.

Our story begins with V.I. being unwillingly drafted in to coach a girls' basketballl team at her old high school. One of the girls mothers works at Fly the Flag, a flag manufacturing company employing local workers. She becomes concerned about operations & asks to see V.I., then inexplicably changes her mind. In classic private eye style, V.I. never lets a question go unanswered & the action takes off from there.

Fire Sale is sufficiently informative about the relationships between V.I. & the regular cast members to stand alone as a novel. The fine balance between educating the novice reader & not boring the regulars is well handled & we find more tidbits about V.I.'s prior relationship with Rawlings as well as her current amour, Morrell. Highly recommended both for regular readers of the series & for those who enjoy the private eye genre.

Is there anything that can't keep this woman down? - By: E. Chittenden, 24 Mar 2006
Another action packed Warshawski novel. With the seedy underbelly of south Chicago biting through bringing back memories for Warshawski that she would prefer remain buried. Getting sucked into an investigation she didn't ask for finding missing people & asking questions that invariably put her life in danger. The book seemed to lack the darkness that came with her last book but it still keeps your heart pounding throughout.

Vic gets sucked into coaching a basketballl team at her old school, it's not the only thing she gets sucked into. Exploding factories, missing teenagers, dead aquaintances & a battle scarred lover. There's nothing missing from this book & although lacking the edge of some of her previous books it's a must read for alll Warshawski fans.

V.I. Stomps on Her Old Turf - By: Donald Mitchell, 27 Aug 2005
Sara Paretsky's work is best when she uses the chilling surroundings of the poor as one of her characters. The bleak streets provide a color that makes alll of her characters & plots that much more vivid & interesting.

Take V.I. out of the slums & the characters become uninteresting, thin & superfluous.

Fire Sale is squarely placed in the depths of South Chicago. That's what lifts this book above being an average novel.

There's a nice touch to the story as V.I. finds herself recruited to be a fill-in for her old high school basketballl coach who's fighting cancer. In the story, there are many flashbacks as V.I. reflects on her own times & how those times are different from these times for these young women.

You've never attended a basketballl practice like these. Observers include the children of the players & their "boyfriends".

There's also gripping material about a slum factory . . . & the accidents that dog its existence.

V.I. finds herself with more "cases" than she can handle (most of these are of the nonpaying variety). That makes the plot deliciously complex -- something Ms. Paretsky does not always achieve in her books.

The book has two annoying qualities that keep it from being a five-star novel. First, Ms. Paretsky fallls into the trap that many novelists do who have heroines . . . they turn the heroines into either punching bags or pincushions for physical violence. It's unnecessary & it's annoying. Second, as usual, her portrayal of the rich makes them so obnoxious & annoying that you don't reallly want to read those sections. Ms. Paretsky needs to appreciate that even villains become more interesting when you give them sympathetic qualities. The material about the Bysens is so annoying that I was tempted to grade the book at three stars. Think of this as a three-and-a-half star book.