Total Recall, Sara Paretsky
Total Recall, Sara Paretsky
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Total Recall

Author: Sara Paretsky

Narrator: Sandra Burr

Unabridged: 15 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/16/2017


Synopsis

The bestselling V.I. Warshawski novels have dazzled readers and earned the acclaim of critics everywhere. “V.I. Warshawski rules,” writes Newsweek, crowning her “the most engaging woman in detective fiction.” Of V.I.’s creator, the Chicago Tribune says “Sara Paretsky has no peer.”Now Paretsky brings her incomparable storytelling brilliance to her most powerful Warshawski novel yet. Total Recall follows the Chicago P.I. on a road that winds back more than fifty years—and into an intricate maze of wartime lies, heartbreaking secrets, and harrowing retribution.For V.I., the journey begins with a national conference in downtown Chicago, where angry protesters are calling for the recovery of Holocaust assets. Replayed on the evening news is the scene of a slight man who has stood up at the conference to tell an astonishing story of a childhood shattered by the Holocaust—a story that has devastating consequences for V.I.’s cherished friend and mentor, Lotty Herschel.Lotty was a girl of nine when she emigrated from Austria to England, one of a group of children wrenched from their parents and saved from the Nazi terror just before the war broke out. Now stunningly—impossibly—it appears that someone from that long-lost past may have returned.With the help of a recovered-memory therapist, Paul Radbuka has recently learned his true identity. But is he who he claims to be? Or is he a cunning impostor who has usurped someone else’s history…a history Lotty has tried to forget for over fifty years?As a frightened V.I. watches her friend unravel, she sets out to help in the only way she can: by investigating Radbuka’s past. Already working on a difficult case for a poor family cheated of their life insurance, she tries to balance Lotty’s needs with her client’s, only to find that both are spiraling into a whirlpool of international crime that stretches from Switzerland and Germany to Chicago’s South Side.As the atrocities of the past reach out to engulf the living, V.I. struggles to decide whose memories of a terrible war she can trust, and moves closer to a chilling realization of the truth—a truth that almost destroys her oldest friend.With fierce emotional power, Sara Paretsky has woven a gripping and morally complex novel of crime and punishment, memory and illusion. Destined to become a suspense classic, Total Recall proves once again the daring and compelling genius of Sara Paretsky.

About Sara Paretsky

Sara Paretsky is the author of fourteen previous books, including twelve V. I. Warshawski novels. She 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 James on November 03, 2019

Book Review 3 out of 5 stars to Total Recall, the 10th book in the "VI Warshawski" mystery series, written in 2001 by Sara Paretsky. In this book, Paretsky tackles a prominent social issue surrounding the impact of the Nazis and the Holocaust, the war in Afghanistan and the best way to h......more

Goodreads review by Larry on August 05, 2023

I find myself rereading some of the Paretsky series about VI Warshawski 10 years later. This time I am using the Audible version with the support of the e-book. As I read my previous review, I have some of the same thoughts and experiences from the second time around. My recollection of my previous......more

Goodreads review by Johnny on March 05, 2012

I love Chicago. I particularly love novels and movies set in Chicago (even when they are supposed to be Gotham City as opposed to Chicago—grin). If the novel happens to be a reasonably solid mystery or thriller set in Chicago and using real locations, I like it even more. So, don’t expect me to be o......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on June 24, 2013

Total Recall is set in Chicago and is quite a complex read. The story covers three separate plots that may or may not be connected. The main mystery is centered around an insurance scam, with protestors demanding the recovery of Holocaust assets. PI Warshawski soon finds herself in the middle of ano......more

Goodreads review by Susan on September 30, 2009

If Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels are the half hour prime-time comedies of women private investigators, then Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels are the 10:00pm slot hour-long dramas. These books aren't light, but wow are they mysteries worth sinking your teeth into. The context of this myste......more