Hardball

July 13, 2009
Bestseller Paretsky tracks the poisonous residue of racial hatred that still seeps into Chicago life and politics in her fine 13th novel to feature gutsy PI V.I. “Vic” Warshawski, last seen in 2005's Fire Sale
. In her search for a black man who disappeared in 1967, Lamont Gadsden, Vic reconnects with some of her father Tony's old police colleagues; pays a prison visit to Johnny Merton, a notorious gang leader she once defended in her lawyering days; and tracks down Steve Sawyer, who disappeared following a murder conviction. Vic confronts an ugly period in Chicago's history, a peaceful march in 1966 by Martin Luther King that resulted in a white riot and the murder of a young black woman, Harmony Newsome. Digging into this ancient history stirs passions and fears of what secrets might be revealed. The apparent kidnapping of Vic's fresh-out-of-college cousin, Petra, who's come to Chicago to work on a senatorial campaign, raises the ante.

August 1, 2009
V.I. Warshawski's 13th case (Fire Sale, 2005, etc.) drags her back to Chicago's tumultuous summer of 1966.

Pastor Karen Lennon, chaplain to Lionsgate Manor nursing home, wants V.I. to help elderly Ella Gadsden and her ailing sister Claudia Ardenne with a little pro bono work. The assignment—track down Ella's missing son Lamont—would be simple, if the boy hadn't vanished more than 40 years ago, and if Chicago's finest had shown the slightest interest in his disappearance. As V.I. is settling into this cold, cold case, life goes on happening in the present. She breaks up with her most recent lover. Her cousin Petra, a bright-eyed college grad from Kansas City, pops up, lands a job working on charismatic Brian Krumas's senatorial campaign and showers V.I. with questions about their family. Lamont's surviving friends stonewall and revile V.I., even if they're in jail. Yet the draw of the past is paramount. A nun who shared murdered civil-rights activist Harmony Newsome's last moments at a Martin Luther King–led march in 1966 is murdered under V.I.'s nose. Evidence links her beloved cop father to a cover-up of police torture. And Petra disappears hours after she enters V.I.'s home with a mysterious pair who turn it upside down looking for something—a plot twist Paretsky begins with and then spends 270 pages working back up to.

A tormented, many-layered tale that seems to have been dug out of Chicago history with a pickax. Readers who persevere through that interminable first-half flashback will be rewarded with the tremendous momentum of the second half.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 15, 2009
Fans of Chicago sleuth V.I. Warshawski will cheer her return (after "Fire Sale") as she handles a case steeped in local politics and civil unrest. V.I. accepts a cold missing-persons case and immediately begins to unearth memories that might better stay buried deep in the past. Her own family is brought up in this investigation: her father was the arresting officer on a related case; her young cousin Petra (in town working for a rising-star politician with family ties to V.I.'s uncle) takes a sudden interest in Warshawski family history and Vic's life; and V.I. has to balance her solitary bristle with a desire for connection with the past. VERDICT Packed with Chicago history and racial and personal conflict, this story picks up quickly and is a finely honed mystery with serious depth. Expect high demand from series fans. This will also appeal to any local-crime or social- issue mystery readers. Race riots, police brutality, political bribery, Chicago's dirty historythis one has it all. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/1/09.]Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2009
A snippet from Paretskys own life informs her fifteenth V. I. Warshawski crime story, which harks back to the riots during Martin Luther King Jr.s 1967 visit to Chicago; at that time, Paretsky was working in Chicago as a community organizer. As usual in the series, the city, especially its working-class neighborhoods, is vividly characterized, as are its politics and ethnic and cultural conflicts. V. I. is at her most vulnerable here. Though ever the champion of the disenfranchised and the poor, and still pretty fast on her feet, the sometimes-reckless private investigator now sees 50 on the horizon. Having parted from yet another lover, she has begun to wonder if her stubborn devotion to work, which often wreaks havoc with those she cares about most, makes her unable to sustain a long-term relationship. The disappearance of her lively, twentysomething cousin, who was in Chicago to work on the campaign of an up-and-coming politician, adds to her nagging self-doubt. Surely savvy V. I. should have been able to keep the girl safe. Her angst-ridden determination to put things right eventually leads her back to the sixties and to a shocking secret about her familys history. Nuanced, well-realized characters and an intricately braided plot mark another stellar performance from a storyteller as dedicated to entertainment as to exposing humankinds treachery and greed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)