About this Event
We're excited to host the book launch party for Sara Paretsky in celebration of the release of Bad Company: A Thriller. The date of this event is especially auspicisous as it coincides with Women & Children First's 47th birthday! We've had the honor of hosting Sara for nearly every book she's published throughout her prolific career; we're thrilled to welcome her back once more for this reading, conversation, and book-signing.
International bestseller and groundbreaking icon Sara Paretsky returns with a brand new novel and character - proving once again that she's one of the pre-eminent authors in crime fiction and beyond.
To all appearances, Lily Sedako is an ordinary retiree—a seventy-something single woman living in Chicago, her days filled with the routine tasks of normal life. But underneath that exterior, lies a remarkable past. A former CIA field agent, she spent her career in various Central Asian countries, most notably in Hayalistan, a former USSR territory. But everything went sideways when Lily's connections to the mountain tribes resulted in her being moved to a new post and Rani, the tribal leader and first democratically elected President was removed, presumed killed, in a coup.
All of this is long behind her when she receives an anonymous package containing a magazine with an article about Hayalistan—an article with a previously unknown photo showing Lily in the background. This was no mistake—someone out there is trying to expose Lily, after more than two decades, for reasons unknown. Even worse, the magazine story casts doubt on everything she believed to be true about her time in Hayalistan.
Lily is determined to find out who is behind this and, even more important, the truth of what really happened so long ago. As word of her investigation reaches the CIA, the company knows that they must silence her but Lily is no one's pawn, even now. Using hard won skills and personal connections from her former life, Lily takes on the unwise, and perhaps impossible task of fighting back against the powerful forces aligning against her.
In a powerful novel about love, power, corruption, aging, trust...and revenge, Bad Company reaffirms Sara Paretsky place as one of the pre-eminent crime writers of our time.
Hailed by the Washington Post as “the definition of perfection in the genre,” SARA PARETSKY is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the renowned V.I. Warshawski series. She is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. She lives in Chicago.
Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are strongly encouraged for this event but not required. We have one industrial air purifier, two smaller air purifiers, and four ceiling fans throughout our space. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other access needs please email .
Event venue & nearby stays
Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.