summer quest: Sara Paretsky scavenger hunt.

I’ve got a new mystery obsession this summer. As is so often the case, it came about by pure serendipity.

One of my neighbors used to run a Little Free Library, and someone else in the neighborhood would drop off advanced copies (in addition to the ones I would contribute). I found an ARC of Dead Land, Sara Paretsky’s latest V.I. Warshawski novel, on the shelf back in April, and finally got around to reading it in July.

I usually don’t like starting a series at the end, but I was hankering for a new mystery and I liked V.I.: she’s whip-smart, tenacious and fiercely committed to justice. Plus she’s a master of both sharp, snarky wit and getting herself into (and out of) tight corners.

I checked out the first two books, Indemnity Only and Deadlock, from the library, and then decided to see if I could find used copies of V.I.’s other adventures around town. I hit the jackpot at the Harvard Book Store: three mass-market paperbacks (in series order!) for under $4 each. So I scooped them up and have been popping into the other used bookstores I know, to see what I can find.

Rodney’s in Cambridge yielded an old hardcover of Tunnel Vision, and I later found one book each (Fallout and Critical Mass, respectively) at the Booksmith and Commonwealth Books. I like the varied, sometimes campy cover art, the portability of the mass markets, and the fact that they’re so darn affordable. I love a glossy new hardcover as much as the next reader, but I also like collecting a series this way, scavenger hunt-style. I didn’t have any luck at the Brattle, but I’m getting the ones I don’t find from the library. (Thank heaven for library holds pickup.)

Do you hunt for series like this?

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