A book in the V.I. Warshawski series, 1991

Thanks to: Diana Haskell, Mena de Mario, Sarah Neely, Susan Ritter, and Mary Wylie for technical advice for “Grace Notes.”

Thanks to Betty Nicholas, for essential technical advice and connections for “Strung Out.”

Thanks to Dr. Robert Kirschner, for figuring out the murder method in “Settled Score.”

These stories were written over a period of thirteen years, beginning with “The Takamoku Joseki” (1982) and ending with “Grace Notes” (1995), created especially for this collection. For that reason some details about V. I.’s life will appear inconsistent-sometimes she’s driving an Omega, sometimes her Trans Am. She bought the Trans Am in 1990, at the end of the novel Burn Marks. Her dog, Peppy, became part of her life in 1988, at the conclusion of Bitter Medicine. The story “The Maltese Cat” was originally written in 1990, during the Bush-Quayle administration.

I sometimes write short stories when I am trying to understand a question that doesn’t seem to merit a whole novel. That was true of “Settled Score,” where I was wrestling with the issue of personal responsibility. Unusual settings suggest other stories: I once swam for a corporate competition (where I was so slow the other swimmers were eating dinner by the time I covered two laps); the starting gun and all of us diving at once turned into “At the Old Swimming Hole.” However, in “The Maltese Cat,” I simply wanted to pay my own particular homage to the great master of the hard-boiled detective.

Sara Paretsky

Chicago, June 1995