Overboard

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Average Rating
Publisher
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Publication Date
2022.
Language
English

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"Readers can find comfort in the dedication V.I. gives the cries for help she hears from friends, neighbors, and strangers... Very few series authors deliver as masterfully as Sara Paretsky.” — San Francisco Book Review

Legendary detective V.I. Warshawski uncovers a nefarious conspiracy preying on Chicago’s weak and vulnerable, in this thrilling novel from New York Times bestseller Sara Paretsky

On her way home from an all-night surveillance job, V.I. Warshawski’s dogs lead her on a mad chase that ends when they discover a badly injured teen hiding in the rocks along Lake Michigan. The girl only regains consciousness long enough to utter one enigmatic word. V.I. helps bring her to a hospital, but not long after, she vanishes before anyone can discover her identity. As V.I. attempts to find her, the detective uncovers an ugly consortium of Chicago powerbrokers and mobsters who are prepared to kill the girl. And now V.I.’s own life is in jeopardy as well.

Told against the backdrop of a city emerging from its pandemic lockdown, Overboard lays bare the dark secrets and corruption buried in Chicago’s neighborhoods in a masterly fashion.

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ISBN
9780063010888
9780063010901
9780063010918

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Also in this Series

Similar Series From Novelist

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for series you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
Readers looking for tough-minded female private investigators with a strong sense of feminism (V.I. Warshawski) and social justice (Chicago Mysteries) will find them in both of these series. Chicago mysteries feature a Black female protagonist. -- Andrienne Cruz
Chicago detectives go up against kidnappers, murderers and more in these intricately plotted mystery series. Both depict the gritty crime world of a big city, but one is fast-paced (Warshawski) while the other more leisurely. -- Jennie Stevens
Though V. I. Warshawski lives in Chicago and Emma Djan in Ghana, both of these tough-as-nails women private investigators fight to find the truth behind shocking crimes in these gritty mystery series. -- Stephen Ashley
Both of these gritty and fast-paced mystery series star determined investigators (police in Blue Mumbai and private in V. I. Warshawski) who always hunt for the truth even in the darkest of situations. Blue Mumbai's cases are somewhat more disturbing. -- Stephen Ashley
While King Oliver is a bit broodier than V. I. Warshawski, both resolute big-city private detectives (Warshawski works in Chicago and Oliver in New York City) unflinchingly pursue justice at any cost in these gritty mystery series. -- Stephen Ashley
Though V. I. Warshawski is faster paced and Detective Harriet Foster is focused more on atmosphere, both suspenseful mystery series star tough Chicago-based women crime solvers who take on a variety of complex, sometimes dangerous cases. -- Stephen Ashley
Though Kate Delafield is an LAPD cop and V. I. Warshawski is a Chicago-based private investigator, both tough women solve crimes and fight for justice for people without a voice in these suspenseful mystery series. -- Stephen Ashley
Readers looking for a suspenseful mystery series with a gritty (Warshawski) or menacing (Hanne Wilhelmsen) edge and a tough woman lead should check out both of these compelling series. Warshawski works in Chicago, and Wilhelmsen in Oslo, Norway. -- Stephen Ashley
These fast-paced mystery series will leave readers breathless as tough, keen-eyed sleuths take on a variety of dangerous cases. V. I. Warshawksi is a Chicago-based private investigator, while Lincoln Rhyme is a NYPD cop turned consultant. -- Stephen Ashley

Similar Titles From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for titles you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These books have the subjects "crime bosses," "murder victims," and "organized crime"; and characters that are "well-developed characters."
NoveList recommends "Emma Djan novels" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Hanne Wilhelmsen novels" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Lincoln Rhyme mysteries" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Chicago mysteries (Tracy Clark)" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
These books have the appeal factors richly detailed and intricately plotted, and they have the subjects "women private investigators" and "murder investigation"; and characters that are "well-developed characters."
NoveList recommends "King Oliver novels" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Detective Harriet Foster" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Clay Edison novels" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
These books have the appeal factors gritty, strong sense of place, and intricately plotted, and they have the subjects "women private investigators," "witnesses," and "missing persons investigation"; and characters that are "well-developed characters" and "flawed characters."
NoveList recommends "Blue Mumbai novels" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.
NoveList recommends "Kinsey Millhone mysteries" for fans of "V. I. Warshawski mysteries". Check out the first book in the series.

Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski are both clever, tough, and independent PIs. Though Warshawski may have a more fervent feminist slant and a harder edge than Millhone, fans of gritty, urban detective stories featuring female protagonists will enjoy both authors. -- Ellen Guerci
Faye Kellerman's mysteries set in gritty Los Angeles and environs may appeal to Sara Paretsky's fans for their determined, socially conscious lead characters, Pete Decker and Rina Lazarus. The intense plots and vivid sense of place will capture fans of Paretsky's urban setting. -- Katherine Johnson
Like Sara Paretsky's mysteries, Val McDermid's feature a focus on issues in contemporary women's lives, incorporate an urban setting, and explore the political and societal landscape of that setting through complicated plotting. -- Bethany Latham
Andrew M. Greeley's and Sara Paretsky's mysteries, set in Chicago, feature strong, resilient female protagonists whose particular talent is hunting criminals. Greeley favors amateur sleuths and a more evocative atmosphere, while Paretsky throws in more grit and social commentary. Both writers, however, prefer a fast pace and plenty of suspense. -- Mike Nilsson
Edna Buchanan and Sara Paretsky both write intelligent mysteries with well-developed series characters, complex investigations, treatment of tough social issues, and detailed settings. Buchanan's novels are set in Miami and Paretsky's take place in Chicago. -- Ellen Guerci
Judith A. Jance and Sara Paretsky both write about private investigators who came from other careers. Though Jance's novels have a less-hard edge, readers enjoy her adventures for the same reasons they enjoy those of Paretsky's characters. Both also portray settings in vivid detail. -- Katherine Johnson
Although her setting is often rural Oregon rather than urban Chicago, Kate Wilhelm's provocative Barbara Holloway legal thrillers offer similar satisfactions for Sara Paretsky's fans. Prickly and aggressive heroine Holloway struggles with important social themes in an equally well-defined landscape as she strives for justice at any cost. -- Ellen Guerci
Linda Barnes's mysteries featuring tough-talking Boston-based Private Investigator Carlotta Carlyle make a good suggestion for Sara Paretsky's fans. Their similarities include a deep-seated affection for their home turf, deeply ingrained social and political consciences, and interesting series characters who are loners but who have built families for themselves. -- Ellen Guerci
Like Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller writes mysteries featuring a heroine concerned with social causes. While Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski mysteries are set on Chicago's mean streets, Muller's Sharon McCone stories are set in a vividly drawn San Francisco. Both authors create a well-developed cast of exciting characters and provocative cases. -- Ellen Guerci
These authors' works have the genre "mysteries"; and the subjects "women private investigators" and "private investigators."
These authors' works have the appeal factors suspenseful, fast-paced, and intricately plotted, and they have the genre "mysteries"; and the subjects "women private investigators," "murder investigation," and "murder."
These authors' works have the appeal factors fast-paced and intricately plotted, and they have the genre "mysteries"; and the subjects "women private investigators," "murder investigation," and "murder."

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

V. I. Warshawski's twenty-second episode kicks off with the Chicago gumshoe's dogs sniffing out a battered, nearly dead teen wedged between a park's boulders. Vic's follow-up on the girl's recovery raises red flags; the still-unidentified teen inexplicably fled the hospital after a visit from a Chicago PD detective. After CPD's Lieutenant Coney turns violent while interrogating Vic about the girl's whereabouts, Vic becomes certain that Coney's interest goes beyond clearing a missing-persons case. Then the teenage son of Vic's childhood nemesis, Donny Litvak, begs for Vic's help to sort out an extortion threat that's linked to his father's bad-boy past. Before she knows it, Vic is hiding both teens and trying to sort out how they, a crumbling shoreline mansion, and a missing drone prototype have caught the no-holds-barred interest of both cops and the underworld. Interwoven COVID protocols highlight the pandemic's impacts on detecting, but Paretsky's clever plotting and storytelling crusades against corruption remain unchanged in this particularly evocative visit to Vic's world. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Paretsky's long-running series has retained its popularity for 40 years, and her latest will do nothing to diminish V. I. Warshawski's enormous fan base.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

In MWA Grand Master Paretsky's timely, propulsive 21st V.I. Warshawski novel (after 2020's Dead Land), the private investigator's dogs get loose during a walk and lead her to an unconscious teenage girl on Chicago's lakefront. She has no identification, but wakes long enough to whisper the word nagyi before EMTs take her away. The local news interviews Vic about the rescue, and shortly thereafter, two sets of cops--one from Homan Square, the Chicago PD's enhanced interrogation facility--start harassing her for information about Jane Doe and any personal effects Vic may have found at the scene. When the girl later vanishes from the hospital and a possible witness is murdered, Vic resolves to find and protect her from further harm. Subplots involving hate crimes perpetrated against a Jewish Orthodox synagogue and a family of hustlers from Vic's old neighborhood add to this thorny tale of corruption and greed. Paretsky's dizzyingly complex plot strains credulity, but the tale's relentless pacing, sky-high stakes, and strong social justice advocacy should keep readers invested in the expertly crafted characters' fates. Series fans will get their money's worth. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (May)

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Kirkus Book Review

V.I. Warshawski returns to confront a list of felonies as long as your arm, even if your arm is holding a rifle. A quiet walk with the dogs she shares with her 92-year-old neighbor, Sal Contreras, turns eventful when one of them slips the leash and takes off to nose out what turns out to be an unconscious young woman, beaten and burned. Thankfully, the Jane Doe, who murmurs only one semi-intelligible word, nagyi, is still alive, but Sgt. Lenora Pizzello, of the Chicago PD, has lots of questions for Vic, beginning with why her dog was unleashed. Thoroughly rattled by the experience, Vic has trouble pivoting to the elderly members of Congregation Shaamar Hashomayim when their synagogue is vandalized. A possible savior to the problems of the impoverished community seems to emerge, but in fact Brendan "Corky" Ranaghan, senior partner in Klondike Financial Services, is merely interested in becoming a silent partner by purchasing their building and doesn't mind throwing out vague threats to help them make up their minds. Back at the hospital from which the Jane Doe has managed to escape wearing the clothes of Ariadne Blanchard, her roommate, Hungarian-born janitor Jan Kadar, who overheard her in conversation with an unidentified visitor, is found murdered, followed shortly by Ariadne. Meantime, Brad (ne Branwell) Litvak, the son of Vic's old friend Donny, has approached her with more halting suspicions, and she runs repeatedly and unprofitably into Lt. Scott Coney, who seems determined to add her to his long list of excessive-force complainants. Paretsky ties this rapidly expanding bolus together with such an assured sense of inevitability that fans may overlook the relative lack of surprise. Not just murder, but adultery, hate crime, fraud, elder abuse, police misconduct, and dysfunctional families. Enjoy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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Booklist Reviews

V. I. Warshawski's twenty-second episode kicks off with the Chicago gumshoe's dogs sniffing out a battered, nearly dead teen wedged between a park's boulders. Vic's follow-up on the girl's recovery raises red flags; the still-unidentified teen inexplicably fled the hospital after a visit from a Chicago PD detective. After CPD's Lieutenant Coney turns violent while interrogating Vic about the girl's whereabouts, Vic becomes certain that Coney's interest goes beyond clearing a missing-persons case. Then the teenage son of Vic's childhood nemesis, Donny Litvak, begs for Vic's help to sort out an extortion threat that's linked to his father's bad-boy past. Before she knows it, Vic is hiding both teens and trying to sort out how they, a crumbling shoreline mansion, and a missing drone prototype have caught the no-holds-barred interest of both cops and the underworld. Interwoven COVID protocols highlight the pandemic's impacts on detecting, but Paretsky's clever plotting and storytelling crusades against corruption remain unchanged in this particularly evocative visit to Vic's world. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Paretsky's long-running series has retained its popularity for 40 years, and her latest will do nothing to diminish V. I. Warshawski's enormous fan base. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.
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Library Journal Reviews

In a series starter from the ever-popular Armstrong, homicide detective Mallory is in 2019 Edinburgh when she experiences A Rip Through Time and winds up in one of the city's alleyways in 1869, inhabiting the body of strangled-if-not-quite-dead housemaid Catriona Thomson and soon hunting for a killer (50,000-copy first printing). In Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Enchanted Cottage, the redoubtable sleuth and her English-village neighbors fail in their attempt to befriend standoffish newcomer Crispin Windle until they discover the ruins of a Victorian woolen mill—and the graves of children who worked there, whom they seek to identify (30,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for July 2021). In Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride, crusty but beloved widow Nonna Maria—who lives on the isle of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples and was inspired by the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Carcaterra's grandmother—intervenes when a young bride-to-be declares that she's afraid of her fiancé. In Haines's Lady of Bones, Mississippi-based Sarah Booth Delaney of the Delaney Detective Agency is attending a party alit with jack-o-lanterns when she's approached by a woman seeking her vanished daughter, who has been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans every Halloween for the last five years (40,000-copy first printing). The internationally best-selling author of the "Dark Iceland" and "Hulda" series, Jónasson sets his new standalone during an Icelandic blizzard, with four frantic friends sheltering in an abandoned hunting lodge and facing a reignited tragedy that likely makes them wish they were all Outside (50,000-copy first printing). In Klingborg's Wild Prey, Inspector Lu Fei of the Chinese Police travels to a remote region of Myanmar to find a missing 15-year-old girl in a case involving the illegal trafficking of exotic animals (50,000-copy first printing). In Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour, Lupica assigns PI Sunny Randall the thankless task of investigating actress friend Melanie Joan Hall when Melanie's manager turns up dead, her bank account looks to be wiped out, and details of her past suddenly seem more imagined than real. In Paretsky's Overboard, a seriously injured teenage girl discovered by V.I. Warshawski on Lake Michigan's rocky shore subsequently vanishes from the hospital, and the iconic detective must chase down a monstrous conspiracy with pandemic-ridden Chicago as backdrop (100,000-copy first printing). Pursuing a massive drugs-and-weapons shipment being shepherded across the U.S.-Mexican border by former cops with the warning "You talk, you die" written on their bodies, Patterson/Paetro stalwart Sgt. Lindsay Boxer suddenly has 22 Seconds to decide what her fate will be. Second in the new series from librarian Weaver, who launched her writing career with the delightful Amory Ames mysteries, The Key to Deceit has breaker-and-enterer Ellie McDonnell again approached by stuffed-shirt good-guy Major Ramsey in World War II London: he wants her to discover which side the female spy found bobbing in the Thames was on (40,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

In MWA Grand Master Paretsky's timely, propulsive 21st V.I. Warshawski novel (after 2020's Dead Land), the private investigator's dogs get loose during a walk and lead her to an unconscious teenage girl on Chicago's lakefront. She has no identification, but wakes long enough to whisper the word nagyi before EMTs take her away. The local news interviews Vic about the rescue, and shortly thereafter, two sets of cops—one from Homan Square, the Chicago PD's enhanced interrogation facility—start harassing her for information about Jane Doe and any personal effects Vic may have found at the scene. When the girl later vanishes from the hospital and a possible witness is murdered, Vic resolves to find and protect her from further harm. Subplots involving hate crimes perpetrated against a Jewish Orthodox synagogue and a family of hustlers from Vic's old neighborhood add to this thorny tale of corruption and greed. Paretsky's dizzyingly complex plot strains credulity, but the tale's relentless pacing, sky-high stakes, and strong social justice advocacy should keep readers invested in the expertly crafted characters' fates. Series fans will get their money's worth. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (May)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.
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