This was excellently performed. A real pleasure to hear Katherine Turner in this role. Although recorded in '91, it would be neat to hear more. ( )

Oh boy, the 80ies were rough.

The story is a typical V.I. story, with two seemingly separate things colliding and ending up being one thing. I hope the rest of the series gets a bit more creative. ( )

First edition fine

I wanted to back in Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski's series again. I picked the earliest one I could get, which happened to be a BBC Radio Crimes drama. It wasn't bad, but I would have enjoyed the whole book more.

"Killing Orders" as a story is one person after another dropping or getting hurt around V.I. once she gets deeply involved in the case. It was a good re-introduction into the series for me. ( )

I loved that the book finally got into more background on V.I.'s dead mother and her antagonistic relationship with her Aunt Rosa. I didn't really enjoy the parts that dealt with the outdated attitudes about lesbians and at one point hoped that the character of Bobby would have a stroke. I also didn't believe all of the craziness that was surrounding V.I. was realistic and her not wanting to tell the police anything was beyond stupid. Her falling out with Lotty was actually interesting, but that quickly got resolved by the end of the book.

in "Killing Orders" V.I. is called to help out her dead mother's aunt. V.I. can't stand the woman and has no idea why her mother on her deathbed demanded a promise from V.I. that she would help Rosa if she ever came calling. Rosa (who sucks by the way) is under investigation by the FBI and SEC after counterfeit stock certificates show up in a church safe where she worked as the treasurer. Though V.I. wishes that the FBI would just come and drag Rosa off into the night (and so will you by the end of this book) V.I. reluctantly investigates. She comes across some bits and pieces that don't seem like they will fit, but ultimately do. She also has a romance with a man who was introduced in the last book (Roger Ferrant) that I was actually interested in this time through cause for once we have Vic (I am tired of typing out V.I.) realizing that she doesn't need to be defensive and nasty towards someone who is expressing concerns towards her.

We get appearances by Lotty, Bobby, Murray, her college friend that was also mentioned in a previous book, and a new character by the way of Lotty's uncle who I thoroughly enjoyed. I have to say that Bobby really sucks in this one. Someone close to Vic in this one dies and there is an ugly accusation that Vic is a lesbian. The whole thing was terrible to read and just made me shake my head. I am glad it's 2017, but I know that old attitudes like that die hard.

We also get some of Vic's thoughts on the Catholic Church which didn't surprise me at this point in the series.

The writing was good though once again I had to laugh from the constant barrage of attacks that Vic is under and how she seems to get out of trouble every five seconds. She's like the freaking road runner. I started just nodding my head after a while.

I have to say that I didn't buy the ending at all though did like that we finally have Vic moving locations. Her apartment sounds terrible. Now if only she moved offices. ( )