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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Was really optimistic by the name - but not the book for me.
I have been reading Sara Paretsky's mystery novels featuring V. I. Warshawski for forty years now! Each one has been both a treat as recurring characters appear and the puzzles are set out but also a challenge to say in a sense, "VI is trying so hard, risking life and limb, to save her bits of the world--what are you (the reader) doing?" While I know a story is a story, the problems Paretsky sets out are real in Chicago and environs, and in the world, especially the US. This book has many references to the pandemic and all the challenges it brought as well as desecration of a Jewish synagogue, corporate greed and corruption, teenagers and elderly mistreated by the adults who are supposed to care for them, excessive police brutality, capitalism run amok. VI tackles as much as she can each day, with the help of her friends, some of whom are quite elderly now, some enemies from childhood, youth and immigrants who seem to find her way to her, and the dogs she shares with Mr. Contreras, her 92-old neighbor. There are also saving and heartening moments where large and small kind deeds occur, people come together to fight the corruption, and VI is challenged to keep her humanity (with all its foibles). There seems to be a musing in this book if VI can keep up this work and energy--but as something else I read lately suggests, that saving work is rarely successfully considered as an endpoint but as what continues to keep us truly human (caring for our neighbor and for those whom society leaves behind). Loved the teen-adult interactions, always love the spunk of the older characters, and it was fun to see bridges built with some long-time acquaintances. Thank you, VI and Ms. Paretsky!
Overboard meets the high standards Sara Paretsky has set for this always engaging, well-plotted series with great characters... including as a character the windy city. This is the first time I read a V.I. Warshawski novel via audible and I definitely had some "driveway" moments where I sat to listen to the next ten, no-- twenty, no.... thirty minutes. Overboard takes us to the old neighborhood and to Goose Island, home to industrial and contractor sites and a mansion that takes on important meaning in the story of development in Chicago. We meet old and new players in the organized crime scene, reformed and unreformed childhood acquaintances and people with deadly intentions towards V.I. and others.
The novel opens, when the dogs find a barely alive teenage girl on some rocks. Something terrible has happened to her but V.I. has only one word to go on as the mystery of this Jane Doe unfolds. A very nasty "bad" cop is way too quick to make (false) connections between V.I. and Jane Doe, going to extremes to mess with Vic. Meanwhile, a synagogue she helps out, its members all elderly, is vandalized and she learns a rather shady developer would love to buy the property. Is this a hate crime or is this developer after something? For various spoiler reasons, V.I.'s attention is drawn to the Archangel nursing home/rehab and memory care center. She also is approached for help by the teenaged son of an older neighborhood acquaintance. The guy she knew as a teen, Donnie Litvak, was one of five abused siblings who ran the streets and got into trouble to varying degrees. The kids are all brainy and both close to one another and a mess in their relationships. Donny's son (is it Brad or Branwell?) is navigating the difficulties of being his hostile parents' son and a phone conversation he overheard that sounded like his father was threatened. All the clues are there and the usual players are present, including my favorite inanimate objects ( Vic's mother's venetian glasses and diamond drop earrings) and Italian opera. COVID-19 is in the background throughout. A fully satisfying read.
The novel opens, when the dogs find a barely alive teenage girl on some rocks. Something terrible has happened to her but V.I. has only one word to go on as the mystery of this Jane Doe unfolds. A very nasty "bad" cop is way too quick to make (false) connections between V.I. and Jane Doe, going to extremes to mess with Vic. Meanwhile, a synagogue she helps out, its members all elderly, is vandalized and she learns a rather shady developer would love to buy the property. Is this a hate crime or is this developer after something? For various spoiler reasons, V.I.'s attention is drawn to the Archangel nursing home/rehab and memory care center. She also is approached for help by the teenaged son of an older neighborhood acquaintance. The guy she knew as a teen, Donnie Litvak, was one of five abused siblings who ran the streets and got into trouble to varying degrees. The kids are all brainy and both close to one another and a mess in their relationships. Donny's son (is it Brad or Branwell?) is navigating the difficulties of being his hostile parents' son and a phone conversation he overheard that sounded like his father was threatened. All the clues are there and the usual players are present, including my favorite inanimate objects ( Vic's mother's venetian glasses and diamond drop earrings) and Italian opera. COVID-19 is in the background throughout. A fully satisfying read.
Compelling and so so angry - sits really interestingly in the light of the Casey Report on the Met.
This is the first V.I. Warshawski novel I've read, and I think I have to go back and read the rest of them! I like this Victoria Warshawski!
Like meeting up with an old, good friend. I love V.I. and will read anything Sara Paretsky writes!
"If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life."
"If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life."