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V.I. Warshawski |
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One
of the best known of the new breed of female private detectives who popped up
in the late seventies/early eighties was V.I. Warshawski, a Chicago private eye specializing in corporate
skullduggery. V.I.
is very proud of her Italian-Polish roots and her working class background,
and seems to take particular delight in going after fat cats. She's got an
office in the Loop, complete with the El rattling past every few minutes. She
packs a gun in her purse, and she'll use it if she has to. She'll duke it up
if she has to, and she doesn't take any nonsense, especially from men. She
lives in the real world and that's the way she wants it. She's committed,
principled, and uncompromising, and a very welcome addition to the ranks of
the genre. V.I's
can be pretty cutting and she's about as unapologetically in-your-face as
series private eyes come these days and it's no coincidence that several
people have drawn parallels between V.I. and the equally uncompromising and
personally obsessed Mike Hammer over
the years. In
fact V.I.'s harsh, unbending beliefs and her fierce determination to never
compromise has taken a high toll on her emotional and social life. V.I.
Warshawski comes from the pen of Sara
Paretsky, and she is featured in
nine novels and numerous short stories to date. Of these novels, three, "Deadlock", "Killing Orders" and "Bitter Medicine" have been adapted for radio by the BBC. The novels were adapted for radio in the early
1990's and stared Kathleen Turner
as Warshawski in "Killing Orders" and "Deadlock". She
later played V.I. Warsharski in the movie "V.I. Warsharski", based on the novel "Indemnity Only", the first V.I. Warsharsky novel. In"Bitter
Medicine" the lead was played
by Sharon Gless (of Cagney
and Lacey fame). Michelene
Wandor adapted all three mini-series and they were produced by Janet Witaker. Each
mini-series aired on BBC Radio 4, each in six 30-minute episodes. Killing
Orders starts when V.I.'s
great-aunt Rosa summons the detective to her cold suburban home. Rosa made
V.IÕs childhood miserable and the detective resents the command to help her
aunt prove she didn't embezzle five million dollars from a local Dominican
priory. All
hell breaks loose when a mysterious opponent tries to take Vic off the case
by throwing acid in her eyes and burning down her apartment. And when a
friend whoÕs involved in the case is brutally murdered, it begins to look as
if Vic hasnÕt got a prayer. But
Warshawski continues to follow every lead, even when they point to some
pretty unorthodox conclusions: Perhaps the Dominicans are covering up a
financial scandal. Maybe the whole conspiracy is under the patronage of an
international conglomerate, or of Don Pasquale, king of the Chicago mob.
Worst of all, someone whoÕs close to Vic could be involved—her darkly
handsome English lover, Roger Ferrant, or even Aunt Rosa herself. Deadlock involves the huge Great Lakes shipping industry.
Once again the subject is murder -this time the "accidental death"
of Boom-Boom Warshawski, an ex-hockey star and V.I's beloved cousin, who
fell—or was pushed—off a rain-slicked pier on ChicagoÕs busy
waterfront. Convinced that Boom-Boom was in fact killed because of
information he had uncovered about criminal doings on the shipping lines, V I
begins a long and frustrating search for her cousinÕs murderer. In the course
of an investigation that takes her to a remote Canadian port city and a
calamitous trip on a sabotaged freighter, V I finds all too many possible
candidates for the killer, including a grain company executive involved in
extortion; and rival heads of two shippers, one of whom is being blackmailed
for his criminal past; a hockey player whose specialty is graft; and
Boom-BoomÕs lover, an icily beautiful dancer with expensive tastes in men and
merchandise. Bitter
Medicine starts when a young friend
goes into premature labor. V.I. and Consuelo are far from home. By the time
Consuelo's doctor, young Malcolm Tregiere, arrives, both she and her baby are
dead at the local for profit hospital. V.I. assumes this is a tragic but
unavoidable outcome. However, when Dr. Tregiere is brutally murdered and V.I.
begins to investigate, her work unleashes a trail of violence that leads her
back to the hospital where Consuelo died. The trail of greed and violence the
detective uncovers proves to be bitter medicine indeed This MP3 CD contains
all three V.I. Warshawski mysteries. Each mystery
comprises six 30 minutes episodes. A. Killing Orders 1.
VIWKO_1991-11-07
Episode No.1.mp3 2.
VIWKO_1991-11-14
Episode No.2.mp3 3.
VIWKO_1991-11-21
Episode No.3.mp3 4.
VIWKO_1991-11-28
Episode No.4.mp3 5.
VIWKO_1991-12-05
Episode No.5.mp3 6.
VIWKO_1991-12-12
Episode No.6.mp3 B. Deadlock 1.
VIWD_1993-01-28
Episode No.1.mp3 2.
VIWD_1993-02-04
Episode No.2.mp3 3.
VIWD_1993-02-11
Episode No.3.mp3 4.
VIWD_1993-02-18
Episode No.4.mp3 5.
VIWD_1993-02-25
Episode No.5.mp3 6.
VIWD_1993-03-04
Episode No.6.mp3 C. Bitter Medicine 1.
VIWBM_1996-12-19
Episode No.1.mp3 2.
VIWBM_1996-12-26
Episode No.2.mp3 3.
VIWBM_1997-01-02
Episode No.3.mp3 4.
VIWBM_1997-01-09
Episode No.4.mp3 5.
VIWBM_1997-01-16
Episode No.5.mp3 6.
VIWBM_1997-01-23
Episode No.6.mp3 |