SARA PARETSKY V.I. WARSHAWSKI SERIES BOOKS 10-12

    Don’t know where you could find 47 listening hours of top mysteries by the estimable Sara Paretsky and read by talented Sandra Burr other than in this three volume set.  All of the stories are from the V. I. Warshawski series and each is a stunner.

    First off is Total Recall in which Paretsky brings together several plots to keep you on the edge of your respective seats.  Vic agrees to help Isaiah Sommers, a lathe operator, press his claim for his late uncle’s $10,000 policy with Ajax Insurance.  The first shock is when Vic’s former lover says Ajax paid out the policy ten years ago.  Second surprise is when Alderman Louis Durham publicly derides Vic for siding with Ajax and trying to cheat the Sommers family out of what is rightly due them.

    As if that weren’t trouble enough Holocaust survivor Paul Radbuka has had repressed memories of his dreadful past brough to the fore by a hypnotherapist, and now believes he’s related to Vic’s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel.  To prove this he begins stalking Lotty and her friends in an attempt to force them to recognize him.

    Although seemingly unrelated issues deaths begin to occur behind the two cases, and Radbuka himself is shot.  What could the connection possibly be?

    Next we’re treated to Blacklist in which Vic agrees to help a former client by checking up on an old family mansion.  In doing so she’s surprised by an intruder and gives chase only to topple into a pond.  As she reaches for something to hold onto she grasps a human hand that belongs to the body  of a reporter who was investigating a case some 45 years ago. 

    Then we hear Fire Sale and find Vic’s Old South Chicago neighborhood is catching up with her when she agrees to coach the girl’s basketball team at her former high school.  Sounds like a good idea to help the girls and perhaps some fun and relaxation for her.  Not at all!  She soon finds herself faced with a ragtag group, some fundamentalists and teenage moms.  When she tries to find a couple of missing teenagers and catch a particularly cruel murderer Vic almost loses her own life.  High school wasn’t like this when she was there!