Bleeding Kansas

Starred review from February 25, 2008
Paretsky takes a break from the mystery genre with this powerful, emotionally genuine tale about the ties of love, family and religious belief in a rural Kansas community. The history of the Schapens, Grelliers and Freemantles in the Kaw River Valley dates back to the mid-19th century, but time, old grudges and religious differences have eroded the bonds of friendship. When John Freemantle's niece moves back to Douglas County, her Wiccan rituals and antiwar activism cause controversy and indirectly inspire teenager Chip Grellier to enlist in the army. After Chip's death in Iraq, the Grellier family begins falling apart. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Schapens, devout fundamentalist Christians, rise with the emergence of an apparently perfect red heifer, the sacrifice crucial to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the Second Coming of Jesus. This audio's power is in its richly evoked characters, and Susan Ericksen's expressive, sympathetic voice partners perfectly with Paretsky's text. She distinctively voices men, women and teenagers with careful shifts in pitch, inflection and accent. In the end, listeners will be both satisfied by the realistic, uplifting ending and bereft at having to say good-bye to Paretsky's painfully real Kansans. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 15).

Starred review from October 15, 2007
Bestseller Paretsky, who has tackled weighty issues in her V.I. Warshawski detective series (e.g., the Holocaust in Total Recall
), weaves a gripping contemporary novel around three farm families—the Grelliers, Fremantles and Schapens—that can trace their Kaw Valley, Kans., roots back to the 1850s, a time of violent clashes between antislavery and proslavery forces in “Bleeding Kansas.” Their shared history is no buffer against the storm of changes that begin with the arrival of Gina Haring, a lesbian Wiccan. Chip Grellier, after being expelled from high school, enlists in the army and is killed in Iraq with devastating effects on his family. The Schapens’ fundamentalist doctrines come to the fore when they discover “a perfect red heifer” in their dairy herd that may be a path to riches as well as to the second coming. Meanwhile, Gina stirs prejudices and passions to a fever pitch. Paretsky taps a different vein and strikes gold in this timely tale of fear and conflict in heartland America. Author tour.

Starred review from November 1, 2007
Paretsky, best known for her acclaimed V.I. Warshawski mystery series ("Blacklist"), turns to her roots in rural Kansas for this stand-alone novel of bigotry, lawlessness, and rampant biblical fundamentalism. It is the 1970s, and the Schapen and Grellier families have been farming adjacent land since the Civil War. Familiarity has bred contempt, and though both families profess Christianity, they practice it very differently, which sets them at odds. When one of the Schapens' cows gives birth to what may be a "perfect red heifer" and a local Orthodox Jewish sect shows great interest in it for potential sacrifice, a media frenzy ensues, stirring religious and monetary fervor. Then, a young Wiccan moves into a local empty farmhouse and starts conducting pagan rights, and the tiny community begins an active harassment campaign. All this is background for the star-crossed love between teenagers Lara Grellier and Robbie Schapen. Paretsky has written a powerful tale with overtones of the Wild West that illustrates the ease with which communities become zealous, ignited by fear and ignorance. Different in style from her crime fiction, this will nonetheless prove popular among her readers. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/07.]Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2007
In only her second nonV. I. Warshawski novel, Paretsky returns to her Kansas roots with an exploration of heartland violence and redemption. The Grellier and Schapen families have farmed the Kaw Valley since the 1850s, but long-lasting grudges have created conflicts almost as fierce as those between the anti- and pro-slavery forces in the midnineteenth century. That historical legacy and the divisive political battles of the1960s and 1970s frame current conflicts, now tinged by religious fervor. Woven into this fabric of unrest are the fate of a perfect red calf, required by conservative Jews for rebuilding the temple, and a diary written by Abigail Grellier detailing her early tumultuous years in Lawrence. When Gina Haring, descendent of another long-established family, arrives to reinvent herself in her crumbling ancestral home, issues come to a head. Violence, tragic death, and fire eventually bring resolution. Paretskys familiar social and political themesintolerance, feminism, familyfigure prominently, but characters drive the novel. They wrestle with thorny dilemmas, and no one escapes unscathed. In words, images, and the cadences of midwestern speech, Paretsky paints the landscape of the Kansas prairie and the cycles of the land in this memorable and tragic tale. For fans of character-centered, issue-driven, evocative novels of the plains, such as Nancy PickardsVirgin of Small Plains (2006), Jim Harrisons Dalva (1988), and Kent Harufs Plainsong (1999).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)