Audio: Love & Other Crimes by Sara Paretsky @SaraParetsky #SusanEriksen @HarperAudio ‏#LoveAudiobooks #JIAM

Posted June 30, 2020 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Book Review, JIAM / 19 Comments

Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.


Audio:  Love & Other Crimes by Sara Paretsky @SaraParetsky #SusanEriksen @HarperAudio ‏#LoveAudiobooks #JIAMLove & Other Crimes by Sara Paretsky
Narrator: Susan Ericksen
Series: V.I. Warshawski
Published by HarperAudio on June 30, 2020
Genres: Mystery
Length: 14 hours, 11 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
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One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star

From New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky, a collection of thrilling crime and detective short stories, many featuring legendary detective V.I. Warshawski--including a brand-new V.I. story.

Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with fourteen short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective--and a new V.I. story.

I have read and loved the V.I. Warshawski series for a looooong time, since it started in 1982! Each book is another case, so you could read them out of order but I wouldn’t.  I enjoy the progression of the characters and they are all great to read.

Love & Other Crimes is different, an anthology of short stories. Many have been published in magazines previously but I am happy to have them all collected here.  Some of the stories are NOT V.I. Warshawski stories. At the beginning, there is a detailed author’s note talking about the stories which I loved.  There are also brief additional insights at the end of some of the stories.

My favorites were definitely the Warshawski stories, which is nearly all of them.  I think it might be hard to connect with them without the context of having read some of the series.  Similarly, I had more trouble with the stories not in this world.  For example, the Sherlock Holmes story surprisingly did not capture me, as it was told more from another point of view, Amelia, who was not familiar to me.  I love Sherlock Holmes but I found it hard to focus from this perspective. But I would like to read the series about Amelia.  But the story loosely related to her father’s work in Kansas was wonderful, and not in the Warshawski world.

Overall, I was delighted with this collection since it is unlikely I would have gotten the magazines.   I really appreciated having all the author’s thoughts and perceptions.

Narration:

Susan Ericksen is an excellent narrator and the voice of the V.I. Warshawski for me.  Many of Vic’s cases are a lot of her thoughts in a stream of consciousness.   The dialogue is handled well for both male and female voices. It was charming to get a British accent on the story with Sherlock Holmes. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip:

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.

Rating Breakdown
Plot
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Writing
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Characters
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Narration (Audio)
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Overall: One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Anne - Books of My Heart
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • COYER-20

Posted June 30, 2020 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Book Review, JIAM / 19 Comments


19 responses to “Audio: Love & Other Crimes by Sara Paretsky

  1. Great review, Anne. It’s always a bonus to thoroughly enjoy a short story collection of a much-loved series – and I think this is where audiobooks come into their own as I definitely prefer listening to short stories, rather than reading them. This is a series I’ve heard a lot abuot over the years, but never read. When the library opens up again, I think I should check it out!