Welcome to the web site for writer Sara Paretsky.

Credited with transforming the mystery through the creation of her female private eye, V I Warshawski, Paretsky’s books are international best sellers, appearing in almost thirty languages.

Sara sits with Cousin Barb in an ancient cave in Crimea Author Sara Paretsky, Photo by Shauna Bittle Sara with the Coffee Pirates in Vienna doing research for Critical Mass. Sara and Mayor Daley at the Harold Washington Awards Banquet. V.I. and Sara meet in front of Buckingham Fountain. Husband Courtenay and agent Dominick Abel help celebrate the Edgar for Grand Master. In the vault at Cartier's Bond Street, Sara gets to handle the real Diamond Dagger. With Stephen King at the 2015 Edgar Dinner

News

 

Dead Land by Sara Paretsky

The latest from Sara, Dead Land, will be released April 21, 2020. To pre-order the book, click here.

“As usual, Paretsky (Shell Game, 2018, etc.) is less interested in identifying whodunit than in uncovering a monstrous web of evil, and this web is one of her densest and most finely woven ever. So fierce, ambitious, and far-reaching that it makes most other mysteries seem like so many petit fours.” —Kirkus (starred review)

 

 

NBC’s Today show interviews Sara (aired Nov. 3, 2019) on the importance of narrator selection for audio books in capturing the essence of the character.  Here Sara is with Susan Erickson, who does the voice-over for her current VI novels.

 

 

Kate Raphael of KPFA Womens Magazine interviews Sara in an August 12, 2019 broadcast in conjunction with an archived interview with Toni Morrison : Groundbreaking Writers Toni Morrison and Sara Paretsky 

 

 

 

CrimeReads Lori Rader-Day interviews Sara: Sara Paretsky Writes What’s on Her Mind, discussing white collar crime, her lifelong activism, and the importance of a good editor.

 

 

On May 9, 2019, Sara received the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Fuller Award for lifetime achievement at the Newberry Library. Notables in the literary world Lori Rader Day, Ann Christophersen, Dominick Abel, Donna Seaman, Neil Harris, Heather Ash, and Margaret Kinsman, gave moving, and humorous, tributes, highlighting Sara’s myriad accomplishments.

 

 

Crime writers have a novel take on reducing gun violence: two dozen short stories of murder without guns. Sara wrote the introduction to Unloaded Vol. 2

 

 

 

 

Sara is honored to receive the first annual G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award, presented by the Mystery Writers of America at this year’s Edgars.

Blog

November 5, 2019 // In June, I’ll be publishing 14 of my short stories, under the title Love and Other Crimes. Some of these stories are new, some have already been published. Some feature VI, some are standalone. Two – “Wildcat” and “Death on the Edge” – were published only as ebooks and so now will be available in […]

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Events

  • Tuesday, April 21st 2020 Sara Paretsky in Chicago, IL at Women & Children First