Sara Paretsky is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski.

Ragdale is the former summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation, an artist residency program that hosts creators from a number of disciplines: nonfiction and fiction writers, composers, poets, play- and screenwriters, visual artists, choreographers, as well as those from interdisciplinary interests.