Breakdown

Name: Breakdown
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Sara Paretsky
ISBN: 9798897568628

Author: Sara Paretsky

Series: V.I. Warshawski

Narrator: Susan Ericksen

Unabridged: 14 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 07/22/2025

Categories: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Suspense & Thriller, Crime, Hard-boiled

Synopsis

A strange crime gets V.I. Warshawski involved with some of Chicago’s most rich and powerful players in this thriller from New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky. When a group of Chicago tweens holds a ritual in an abandoned cemetery, they stumble on an actual corpse—stabbed through the heart in a vampire-style slaying. V.I. Warshawski arrives on the scene to escort the girls home—but protecting them places her at the tangled center of the investigation. And the girls include daughters of some of Chicago’s most powerful families: the grandfather of one, Chaim Salanter, is among the world’s wealthiest men; the mother of another, Sophy Durango, is running for the United States Senate. For V.I., the questions multiply faster than the answers. Is the killing linked to a hostile media campaign against Durango—or to Salanter’s childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania? As V.I. struggles to find an answer, she finds herself fighting enemies who are no less terrifying for being all too human. “With a satisfying array of baddies and the same comfortable heroes, Sara Paretsky gives her fans all they could ask for and everything they should expect.”—Chicago Sun-Times

About Sara Paretsky

Sara Paretsky is the author of the bestselling V. I. Warshawski novels, including, most recently, Bleeding Kansas. Paretsky is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association. She lives in Chicago.

Reviews

Goodreads review by D. on May 07, 2013

This is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic novel. It's not. Oh, sure there's a plague and lots of people die, but that's just a nuisance. This is a romance novel. You know, traumatized but sensitive rock star just Won't Open Up! to his farm girl/psychologist who he just Feels So Conflicted! about, 'c......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on August 07, 2011

Chris is a man who has lost everything in his life, as the world around him spins out of control. A worldwide pandemic has killed many and set civilization back several centuries as all we take for granted goes away seemingly overnight. After his wife and young daughter die from the plague, Chris se......more

Goodreads review by Matt on September 25, 2013

It’s been six years since a global pandemic killed hundred of millions, maybe even billions, including the wife and child of Chris Price, an ex rock-star and expatriate Brit living in New York. Chris himself is left stranded, on the wrong side of the ocean from all of his surviving friends and famil......more

Goodreads review by Valentina on June 13, 2011

I have a weak spot for post-apocalyptic novels, so when I was offered a free review copy for this book, I jumped at it. I was not disappointed. What makes this particular book work so well is the pacing. The readers are thrown into the remnant of a world we vaguely recognize, but we don’t know all th......more

Goodreads review by Traci on September 01, 2013

This is a great realistic post-apocalyptic novel. It takes place 10 years after the apocalypse (the prologue is during the apocalypse). It's almost like a frame story, with Chris (the main character) finding his brother Jon, then going back in the past a few months, then returning to the present. It......more