Celebrating the Sisterhood

Twenty years ago, at Bouchercon, Chicago novelist Sara Paretsky led the battle to give mystery and thriller writers of the female persuasion more clout in the publishing arena. To celebrate this year’s 20th anniversary of the founding of Sisters in Crime, she has edited a superb collection of 20 stories by SinC members, at least 16 of which appear to have been written especially for this anthology.

All of the tales by SinC members--P.M. Carlson, Barbara D’Amato, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Susan Dunlap, Kate Flora, Linda Grant, Kate Grilley, Carolyn Hart, Libby Hellmann (who has just edited another fine collection, Chicago Blues), Sue Henry, Rochelle Krich, Charlotte MacLeod, Margaret Maron, Claire Carmichael McNab, Annette Meyers, Nancy Pickard, Medora Sale, Eve Sandstrom, and Patricia Sprinkle--are immensely readable. Not the least of these is Paretsky’s own contribution (she also writes an inspiring introduction), called “A Family Sunday in the Park,” which turns out to be a riveting number about private eye Victoria “V.I.” Warshawski’s previously unknown first case. In it, the 10-year-old Tori (as V.I. was known then) risks her life to save her cop father during a race riot in Chicago’s Marquette Park, and solves a murder with her new Baby Brownie camera.