Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Dead Land
    Dead Land
    Dead Land
    Audiobook15 hours

    Dead Land

    Written by Sara Paretsky

    Narrated by Susan Ericksen

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “V.I. Warshawski is as dogged and ferocious as ever. So is Sara Paretsky, who is at the top of her crime novel game.”
       — C.J. Box

    Chicago’s legendary detective, V.I. Warshawski, knows her city’s rotten underbelly better than most, but she’s unable to avoid it when her goddaughter drags her into a fight over lakefront land use, in this propulsive novel from New York Times bestseller Sara Paretsky.

    Chicago may be the city of broad shoulders, but its political law is “Pay to Play.” Money changes hands in the middle of the night, and by morning, buildings and parks are replaced by billion-dollar projects.

    Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals through her impetuous goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard. Bernie tries to rescue Lydia Zamir, a famed singer-songwriter now living on the streets; Zamir’s life fell apart when her lover was murdered next to her in a mass shooting at an outdoor concert. Not only does Bernie plunge her and V.I. headlong into the path of some ruthless developers, they lead to the murder of the young man Bernie is dating. He’s a computer geek working for a community group called SLICK.

    V.I. is desperate to find a mysterious man named Coop, who roams the lakefront in the middle of the night with his dog. She’s sure he holds the key to the mounting body count within SLICK. Coop may even know why an international law firm is representing the mass murderer responsible for Lydia’s lover’s death. Instead, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago’s parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in America’s meddling in South American politics. Before she finds answers, this electrifying novel pushes V.I. close to the breaking point: People who pay to play take no prisoners.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 21, 2020
    ISBN9780062985033
    Author

    Sara Paretsky

    Hailed by the Washington Post as “the definition of perfection in the genre,” Sara Paretsky is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the renowned V.I. Warshawski series. She is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. She lives in Chicago.

    More audiobooks from Sara Paretsky

    Related to Dead Land

    Titles in the series (4)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Karin Slaughter

      Jul 2, 2020

      This American crime author has sold more than 35 million copies of her books globally. This month she’s celebrating the release of her 20th novel in as many years. It’s also the 10th book in special agent Will Trent’s series. “It feels really great a

      1 min read

    • Article

      Notes on Etiquette

      Mar 1, 2019

      Notes on Etiquette
      10 min read

    • Article

      Duncan Hannah

      Sep 15, 2017

      Duncan Hannah
      25 min read

    • Article

      This Back Is a Familiar Back

      May 1, 2023

      This Back Is a Familiar Back
      8 min read

    • Article

      Too BAD

      Aug 30, 2022

      Too BAD
      6 min read

    • Article

      One Coyote

      Sep 29, 2020

      One Coyote
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Life Not Forgotten

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Life Not Forgotten
      6 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      I The teenaged girl is searching for a placethat goes through, the holeto put the tampon inside. When she finds itshe asks her mother, Is this where the penis would go?Yes, her mother explains.Then I will never have sex. II Sweltering New York City.

      5 min read

    • Article

      High Rise

      Aug 6, 2021

      High Rise
      24 min read

    • Article

      Hell Is A City in Texas

      Jun 14, 2021

      Hell Is A City in Texas
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Canine Retiree

      Jul 19, 2021

      The Canine Retiree
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Canine Retiree

      Jul 19, 2021

      The Canine Retiree
      6 min read

    • Article

      Living Next Door To Alice

      Feb 5, 2024

      Living Next Door To Alice
      9 min read

    • Article

      The July War

      Sep 8, 2020

      In summer, our neighborhood quiets in phases. The quieting begins in May. Schools give their older kids, the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, a month off to prepare for the baccalaureate exams. Following a ritual as old as our parents, the students

      21 min read

    • Article

      I Never Called Her Momma

      Sep 13, 2023

      I Never Called Her Momma
      39 min read

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q + A

      Nov 28, 2022

      Q + A
      10 min read

    • Article

      Rag Doll

      May 3, 2018

      Rag Doll
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Show Boy

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Show Boy
      9 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Take a Writer Like Him: My Complicated Love Affair with Kingsley Amis

      Aug 24, 2018

      1. As much as I may rack my brain, there are 15 minutes or so in the dark that I can’t account for and that I’ll never get back—15 minutes during which, I have to think, that creep’s hands were touching my body. It’s a weird thing to think about all

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Posting

      Jun 27, 2023

      The Posting
      35 min read

    • Article

      When I Say Goodbye

      May 31, 2018

      When I Say Goodbye
      16 min read

    • Article

      A Brief History of Violence

      Sep 10, 2020

      A Brief History of Violence
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Dead Land

    4/5

    89 ratings22 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Private investigator V.I. Warshawski went to South Chicago to support her goddaughter Bernie, the coach of the eleven-year-old girls on the soccer team playing the final game in a tournament. Afterwards, the team was going to be recognized by the South Lakefront Improvement Council (SLICK) who helped sponsor the team.The girls were waiting in the hall outside the room where SLICK was holding its monthly meeting, The meeting was very intense when Coop, a man in the audience, loudly protested a plan to build a landfill on Lake Michigan to develop the area. Bernie’s boyfriend, Leo, worked with SLICK and was doing his presentation when Coop interrupted. Chicago had plenty of money for lakefront development but very little was used tor minority areas. The meeting went into recess so the soccer players could get their recognition. Warshawski invited Bernie to join her and Peter, her boyfriend, for something to eat afterwards as they celebrated her birthday. As they headed out, they heard a the sound of a small, toy piano and traced it to a ragged woman under the railroad tracks. The woman blended in with the homeless people in the area but Bernie recognized the music as that of a formerly popular musician, Lydia Zamir. She and Hector, her guitar-playing partner had been shot and killed in a mass shooting at a rally in Kansas four years earlier. As they approached her, the woman backed off, afraid of them. Coop appeared and told them she didn’t trust anyone, people should just leave her alone.Warshawski didn’t quite buy that. The woman appeared to be in very bad shape, physically and mentally, so she tried, unsuccessfully a few more times to gain her trust, bringing her food and supplies and giving her her name and phone number.The story of the woman got out and when she tried to run away, she was injured near the train tracks. The woman was taken to a hospital but slipped out before she was treated. The police cleared out the entire area where the homeless people had been living and Warshawski tried to find out where she had gone.Soon afterwards, Leo’s body was found near the area where the woman had been playing. Further killings and vandalizing occurred.Warshawski’s hunt to find the woman, now pretty much identified as Lydia (she had not died at the rally) continued as she tried to find her location and get her the help she desperately needed but rejected;. Her investigation led her to learn more about the company wanting to develop the area, the corrupt government in Chicago, and the story about Hector and his family’s background, all of which made Warshawski a prime target.DEAD L:AND has a somewhat complicated but plausible plot. The characters are realistic, the bad guys definitely focused on their mission regardless of the cost. But Warshawski does manage to learn the real story. I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
    • 3/5
      This felt like two separate books. Not sure the connection to the two cases was strong enough. Why do detectives begin to seem preachy
    • 4/5
      Because I hadn’t read one of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski novels since 2009’s Hardball, I wondered how much I would remember about Vic and all her supporting characters. A decade away from exposure to Warshawski’s Chicago is, after all, plenty long enough time to forget most of the details of that world, even as vividly as Paretsky always presents them. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried because before I knew it, Dead Land fit like an old glove and I was totally immersed in Paretsky’s story. Dead Land even marks kind of a milestone in the Warshawski saga because it is the twentieth novel of the series.This time around, Warshawski finds herself doing battle with some powerful, and very rich, people who understand exactly how to manipulate Chicago’s corrupt political system in their favor. For these people, it’s all about making millions of dollars by exploiting public property on Chicago’s Southside lakefront - and if they bribe a few of Chicago’s finest politicians along the way, they can make it happen. That’s bad enough, but it all gets personal when Vic’s Canadian goddaughter stumbles into a situation that might expose their scam before it happens. Those same rich and powerful folk can’t let that happen, so people begin to die, and it is only a matter of time before they come for Vic and her goddaughter. That’s the main plot, but I enjoyed the side plot even more. It seems that Bernie Fouchard, the goddaughter in question, has found a famous protest singer living in squaller on Chicago’s streets. The woman is mentally unstable and in danger of dying from exposure. Lydia Zamir, the singer, watched her husband shot to death on stage and never recovered from the shock. She eventually disappeared and no one realized where she was until Bernie and her friends spotted her in her street-nest playing a tiny toy piano and singing songs to herself. Now, Bernie wants to protect the woman - but she and her boyfriend are bringing way too much attention to this part of Chicago to suit the criminals who want to exploit the area. Bottom Line: Sara Paretsky writes a complicated novel and, at times, I did struggle to keep up with all the threads and names she was exploring. But the struggle is worth the effort because Dead Land ends in a very satisfying manner with all the loose ends tied together - and Paretsky does that without having to use the book’s last pages to have one character annoyingly explain to another character everything that’s just happened as so many mystery/crime writers seem to do today. If you are wondering, Dead Land will also, I think, work as a fine standalone novel for those unfamiliar with the Warshawski timeline and character. Now I wonder why I stayed away for so long.
    • 4/5
      I would rate this slightly higher than average for the series as far as the plot being interesting. V. I. once again ends up leaving Chicago for Kansas for at least part of the story. There's also a sub-plot about Chile. Bernie's impetuousness both reminds me some of V.I. in the early series books and annoys me. I really hope that gets toned down some if Bernie is going to remain part of the series. I thought the part about Lydia Zamir's music was interesting but her story was also sad.
    • 5/5
      Another top-notch V.I. Warshawski mystery. V.I has matured into a savvy Chicago PI who gets involved in nonpaying cases in a variety of ways. This time it's through her goddaughter, Bernie, and a homeless former singer.She investigates all sorts of leads, as usual, without getting (or seeking) cooperation from the police. At one time she is followed by a stranger's dog who has been left in her care, so she resorts to disguising herself as a woman with a dog.Saying she has matured is probably not totally accurate. She still is nearly killed at least three times as she travels into enemy territory in Chicago and Kansas trying to find the musician before the bad guys get either of them. Lots of Chicago politics involved, of course.
    • 4/5
      I received a copy of Dead Land as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewers program, and thoroughly enjoyed it. V.I. gets pulled into a complicated web of murder, deceit, shady urban planning and corporate greed when her goddaughter Bernie Fouchard recognizes a homeless woman, Lydia Zamir, singing protest songs that Bernie knows. The roots of this story go back to the United States’ backed coup of Chile by Augusto Pinochet, through the streets of V.I.’s hometown of Chicago and even to Kansas, where V.I. has investigated crime before. She ends up with another dog, Bear, courtesy of Coop, who is on the run himself and somehow involved with Lydia. This is a complicated story, more than I can explain in a paragraph, but well worth the time to read through. My only criticism of this one is that it’s told mostly by V.I. in isolation, without many interactions with friend Lotty or neighbor Mr. Contreras. While I understand that the plot took V.I. away from her loved ones, I prefer mysteries where the protagonist is able to hash out ideas, where the plot is revealed through dialog.
    • 4/5
      Once again Sara Paretsky shows how corporate malfeasance and political corruption affect the ordinary people of Chicago - the poorest and most disadvantaged suffer at the hands of a dodgy real-estate deal and when they fight back, die. I don't know if Paretsky has read Naomi Klein'd devastating analysis of disaster capitalism, [The Shock Doctrine] but her weaving in of the Pinochet regime and its connection with the University of Chicago's CIA-funded economists is masterful. One quibble is that the ending is rather implausible and hurried but I can forgive that for the superb storytelling. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      This one was a page-turner! Sara Paretsky has taken on three huge causes with this one, and has put her PI, V.I. Warshawski in extreme danger while doing so. The book is about urban planning and civic corruption. It's also about inequality with the "haves" having a whole new set of rules than the "have-nots"do. I loved the book. In it we see V.I. in her native Chicago chasing bad guys and gals like normal, but we also see her in the plains of Kansas where she ends upfighting for her life and trying to run from some truly deplorable individuals. As always, Sara Paretsky introduces some particularly nasty villains, but these villains are villains with money, and a whole set of rules that seem to let them operate without impunity. This is a very powerful novel with a lot of detail about urban planning, conservation, and political machinations and genocide all the way back from the 1990's in Chile. V.I. is trying to get her young goddaughter Bernie (Bernadette) out of a very sticky situation that threatens Bernie and those around her. Then V.I. starts digging, and uncovers a very tangled web of lies and deceit and outright murder (both of the individual kind, as well mass murder which occurred in Kansas four years ago.) We meet another dog as well. Peppy and Mitch are not impressed to have another big dog claim V.I.'s attention, but she acquires the dog when the owner leaves him with her and goes on the run to get away from the powerful bad guys that seem to have taken over the Chicago south side. Bear is a good dog, and V.I. is happy to have him as a partner while she's in Kansas. For those who are long-time readers of this series like me, you better grab ahold of this book and read it right away. It's that good! For those new to the series, this actually wouldn't be a bad place to start, and then you will have all the lovely backlist to comb through to bring yourself up to date. I envy you your journey.
    • 4/5
      You can't go wrong with Warshawski and Paretsky, and Dead Land doesn't disappoint. Another great read in Vic's continuing fight for the underdog. Plenty of conspiracy and intersecting threads that kept me engaged until the end.Thanks to LT Early Reviewer's for a review copy.
    • 4/5
      Dead Land is the first novel that Paretsky has had published since her husband's death. I'm glad to see her back with private investigator, V. I. Warshawski. I don't think it's one of her best, but it's a Paretsky, so it's good.For me the plot was too convoluted, a real hydra with a volunteer community organization hoping to improve a Chicago Southside park, a massacre of environmentalists in Kansas, Chilean copper mining, powerful international corporations, and on and on. Vic went off in all directions, and I was tired a lot of time just reading about her. She's getting older and so am I. I missed Mr. Contreras and Lotty, who appeared but not often. At least they were not telling Vic that they were through with her if she didn't let this case go. She was discouraged as usual and injured as usual (with a short stint posing as a homeless person), and eventually tied up the loose ends, brought at least some of the villains to some kind of justice, and supplied some resolution for some of their victims.Thank you, Early Reviewer for my copy of this book!
    • 2/5
      As a few others have stated, the book was very long with a lot of people going off in different directions. What started off as a missing person case ends up being entangled in people wanting to develop a resort on the Lake Michigan waterfront that would destroy many homes and a wildlife corridor. At least V.I. didn't get beat to a pulp, but she was injured in other ways that make me wonder how she is still walking around. I really did try to like it, but it was tough keeping with it until the end.
    • 4/5
      Warshawski comes through again and she lives to tell about it. Lordy, I sort of agree with her neighbor who wants her out of the condo. Washawski is a problem, and yet her death-defying detective work is always done to help someone who really needs it. I’m glad I don’t have to write a synopsis for this book. Its like an octopus with tentacles reaching out in different places yet connected to one central body. I enjoyed this 20th novel in the series, and hope that Warshawski continues to survive and go after some bad guys in another book.
    • 4/5
      Another solid Warshawski novel by Sara Paresky. The plot is complex, the characters numerous and well-drawn, the settings (Chicago and Kansas) described with realistic, gritty accuracy. Most of our favorite recurring characters put in an appearance. Long may V.I. continue to vanquish the bad guys!
    • 3/5
      Dead Land,” the 20th novel in the V. I. Warshawski series, is a disappointment. It took me awhile to get through it as typically I read only 50 pages at a time before I put it down and looked for something more interesting to do. The book gets off to a slow start, in part because of the outsized cast of characters Paretsky introduces, and in part because of the need to set the stage for multiple lines. But that’s not the entire story. In “Dead Land” Warshawski attends an end of season award ceremony for the summer league soccer team coached by Bernie, her goddaughter. There she meets a young man Bernie is dating and observes a presentation by a volunteer group committed to improving public access to the south lakeshore. When the young man is murdered and Bernie is assaulted by burglars, Vic vows to bring the culprits to justice. The other story line involves a once famous folk singer, now homeless, that Bernie hears playing a toy plastic piano in the lakefront park. Vic tells her friend, Murray, and the feature he writes stirs public interest and causes her to flee. Unfortunately, the potential offered by the multiple story lines is not realized because of several shortcomings in addition to the plodding pace in the first half of the book.Paretsky uses some good metaphors at points — a teaspoon of water in the desert — but relies primarily on “telling” instead of “showing.” For example, it is supposedly late summer in Chicago, but we never experience the hot, muggy Chicago weather. We do not see people sweating, dogs with their tongues lolling out, or people wearing flipflops, scant shorts, and thin T-shirts. No one experiences the shock of coming off the hot sidewalk into an air-conditioned room. The same is true during her trip to Kansas, where summer temperatures are often in the mid to high 90s. Vic does like to strip to her underwear and splash in the lake, but that occurs so late that its impact is muted.Another weakness is Paretsky’s bleak view of society. Vic is forced to contend with a powerful, influential crooked politician, an international corporation intent on further enriching itself at the public expense, crocked police administrators that prevent rank and file officers from investigating suspicious activity, a large law firm taking on a pro bono case to tank the defense, crooked jailors who allow the defendant to suicide (or to be murdered), an unscrupulous coroner more interested in personal advancement than in providing honest service, and a small town police chief who takes directions from these culprits. Paretsky’s depicts a grim world with a panoply of stereotypic villains and a paucity of good, decent people.The same superficial approach reduces Vic’s friends to caricatures. Her goddaughter, Bernie, her neighbor, Mr. Contreras, her friend and personal physician, Lottie and her friend Max, her friendly neighborhood bar owner, Sal, her current boyfriend, Peter, and her on-again/off-again reporter/friend, Murray all make an appearance, but all are one-dimensional stereotypes. Perhaps most disappointing is Bernie, who is still immature, impetuous, timid and somewhat whiney. It essential to see some personal growth in the supporting characters if they are to remain interesting.It's a pretty grim world that Paretsky depicts in Dead Land, but it isn’t only the land that is dead, it seems the human spirit is dead also.
    • 3/5
      Private investigator V. I. Warshawski becomes entangled in a mystery due to her goddaughter, Bernie. Bernie tried to rescue a homeless woman who in fact is a famous singer...Lydia Zamir. Lydia’s lover was murdered in a mass shooting and her life/career fell apart afterwards. There is also their involvement in a development scam.Confused? I know I am! I read the book and I’m still not exactly what happened. I usually enjoy books in this series, but this one I found to be a bit too much...too many characters and too many storylines.
    • 5/5
      private-investigators, Chicago, mystery, crime-fiction*****First, I find it absolutely amazing that V.I. remains totally relevant in spite of the passage of time since the first book came out in 1980! The writing and the story are just as impressive as well.V.I. is as tough as the mean streets of the Chicago neighborhoods and knows how to turn the tables on anyone who challenges her. She started out as a lawyer but has done much more since opting out of that profession. She never shows fear in the face of murderous non-local gangs or unscrupulous redevelopers, and goes wherever she needs to find and protect a missing homeless artist. There is a lot of action at a fast pace, plot twists, red herrings, and exposure of bad politics. I loved it!I won a soft cover copy in a LibraryThing Giveaway! Thanks!
    • 4/5
      In spite of all the new and wonderful writers, Sara Paretsky and Linda Barnes remain my two favorites. There's a lot going on in this 20th escapade with V. I., corruption in Chicago remains a standard feature, and all the familiar characters are there, even though not a lot of their personality comes through. You are dependent on earlier books to really understand Lottie and Max, and V.I.'s relationship to the Chicago Blackhawks.
    • 2/5
      Many years have passed since I have read Sara Paretsky, and I have missed her view of the South Side of Chicago. In this installment, V I Warshawski labors to save the Lake Michigan shoreline from uninterested commercial builders who murder to get what they want. This is an advance reader’s edition with several editing errors on page 53, page 172, page 365, and page 385 that need to be corrected before the printing. Relationships fall flat in this story, with little or no emotion in a scene. The story contains many scenes of Warshawski changing clothes, swimming in a lake, running through the park, and taking a shower. A story of multitudes of action, but little psychology.
    • 4/5
      Another winner from Paretsky. This one combines a mysterious, famous musician living on the street and apparently unable to communicate, with a proposal to build a beach on Chicago's rocky Lake Michigan shore. Vic's goddaughter Bernie has been dating a young man who has been helping the team working on the development proposal, and when he is found dead she begins investigating the development project. Multiple threads come together to finally form a complete picture.The story starts a little slowly, but it quickly picks up steam and maintains a good pace the rest of the way. One of the things that I like about this series is that we can see Vic's thinking along the way and try to figure out the story ourselves. I also like the repeating secondary characters. And Vic herself is bold, bright, and lots of fun.
    • 4/5
      V. I. Warshawski takes on a multi faceted case when she once again rescues her goddaughter, Bernie. Bernie is involved with a young man who is working with a group planning a new park for the Lake Michigan waterfront. He sees something wrong with plans and wants to investigate what is happening.Bernie also discovers a famous singer, Lydia Zamir, playing on a toy piano, living homeless. When the singer disappears and Bernie’s young man is murdered, VI becomes involved. Involvement eventually takes her on a harrowing trip to Kansas as she tries to tie the various threads of this story together. The book is fast moving, filled with some really loathsome characters, a new dog, that is a sweetheart and a backstory that is linked to Chile at the time of Pinochet Regime. As VI discovers everything is linked but covered up and hidden under cash and corruption. I enjoy this series. The books are very well written and researched. The characters who continue in each book are people the reader comes to care about and like, even as we worry over the risks VI takes. This is the 20th book in the series and VI isn’t getting any younger!Read as an ARC from LibraryThing.
    • 5/5
      I was given this book as part of the Early Reviewers group.My first read by this author and definitely will NOT be my last. Great story line, amazing characters. The author develops the story well enough that I did not feel left behind due to the fact that the main character has already been in 20 other books! The mystery and intrigue was perfect.
    • 5/5
      I was so happy to get the Advance Reader's Edition of Sara Paretsky's new book, Dead Land, the first week-end of social distancing.I am a Chicagoan so I love reading the VI Warshawski books. Paretsky's detail of the city is without fault. But on to the book.This book did not disappoint. The beauty of Paretsky's mysteries are that they are complex without being confusing. The tangled web in this book has VI involved because her goddaughter's boyfriend is murdered on the south side of Chicago near where a homeless woman lives. The homeless woman is a famous singer/songwriter who has psychological issues from witnessing her boyfriend being killed in a mass shooting. But there is another storyline going also about the development of the shoreline in south side. And the stories intersect! Coop is the character that ties the 2 storylines together. He drops his dog Bear off with VI as he's a suspect in some murders. I could go on and on about the plot but I won't because you need to read this book.All the characters that you know are in the book, Mr. Contreras, Lottie, Max, Sal, etc. If you don't know these characters from previous books don't worry. Read this book and then go back and read the rest in the series.