Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Fallout by Sara Paretsky Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Series: V.I. Warshawski #17
Published by HarperAudio on April 18, 2017
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 448
Length: 16 hours, 27 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm
Before there was Lisbeth Salander, before there was Stephanie Plum, there was V.I. WARSHAWSKI. To her parents, she's Victoria Iphigenia. To her friends, she's Vic. But to clients seeking her talents as a detective, she's V.I. And her new case will lead her from her native Chicago... and into Kansas, on the trail of a vanished film student and a faded Hollywood star.
Accompanied by her dog, V.I. tracks her quarry through a university town, across fields where missile silos once flourished — and into a past riven by long-simmering racial tensions, a past that holds the key to the crimes of the present. But as the mysteries stack up, so does the body count. And in this, her toughest case, not even V.I. is safe.
I have read and loved the V.I. Warshawski series for a looooong time, since it started in 1982! I’ve read and loved them all and Fallout is number 18. The last few I have enjoyed the audio so when I got the chance to review I went for it. Vic is the original and the best for me. The normal setting is in Chicago but in this she goes out of town for her missing persons case.
Susan Ericksen is a wonderful narrator and she is Vic for me now. She handles the inner thoughts and feelings of Vic and the dialogue and accents of all the various characters very well. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if they are accurate to the regions but they sound right to me. She really adds to my enjoyment of the story.
The pace starts slow but builds throughout. There are so many things going on which are interconnected, so when one tumbles, it is a domino effect. I was in fear for some of the characters’ lives including Vic all along. The bad guys aren’t afraid to just kill people to keep things quiet. There are complex layers of good, bad and ugly here, which get intertwined with many not understanding what they are doing even. Also, people aren’t just one thing or the other, good or bad, but shades of these characteristics. Sometimes it feels like she’s not even working the original case. Vic sorts it out per usual to the dismay of many people but to save lives in the end.
I was carried along with the mystery and the characters. I really loved it! The series is a comfortable old friend. There have been breaks, of multiple years even, between books, but Paretsky manages to come back with adventure and compassion every time. Highly recommended.
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About Susan Ericksen
Susan Ericksen is a Renaissance woman. In addition to being an Earphones-winning audiobook narrator and director–she’s a writer, an amateur linguist, an actress, a mother, and a wife. In the 1980s she joined former classmate David Colacci in western Michigan, where he was artistic director for the Hope Summer Repertory Theater. Twenty miles away, a fledgling audiobook publisher called Brilliance was looking for narrators.
Susan has recorded around two hundred audiobooks for Brilliance, BBC Audiobooks, Tantor, and Hachette. “It was a natural step. As repertory theater actors, the whole point is to be able to do Shakespeare one night, a musical the next night, and Noel Coward the next. So you have multiple personalities and multiple character voices and physicalities. These are such valuable skills for doing audiobooks.”
About Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky is a modern American author of detective fiction. Paretsky was raised in Kansas, and graduated from the state university with a degree in political science. She did community service work on the south side of Chicago in 1966 and returned in 1968 to work there. She ultimately completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago, entitled The Breakdown of Moral Philosophy in New England Before the Civil War, and finally earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Married to a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, she has lived in Chicago since 1968.
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I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- Anne: 2017 Audiobook Challenge
- Anne: 2017 New Release Challenge
This is the first I’ve heard of this series. It sounds like a really great one. I haven’t read a pure mystery without some side stories going on in a long time!
tanya – it’s very good. She’s a PI, setting is Chicago. There is violence but it is more intelligent than just violence. Sara Paretsky is an original in Sisters in Crime and has won numerous awards. I read ONLY mystery for about 10 years, so I know a lot of them. She’s one of the best.