One of the reasons I am fond of Sara Paretsky is her ability to locate her stories in the political and social events of the day. In the first chapter of Blacklist, set in 2002, she reflects on the World Trade Center, the Taliban, Afghanistan and anthrax. V.I. Warshawski leans to the left and I like her take on events from that point of view. V.I. is also personally connected with world events by a boyfriend (whom she liberally – way to go V.I. – refers to as a lover) who is a journalist currently in the midst of the most recent American war, this one in Afghanistan. There is rarely a dull moment in the life of Ms. Warshawski. Generally, that is just the way she likes it; she has been known to manufacture excitement herself. V.I. doesn’t waste much time getting into the action. By the end of chapter three she is in a pond with a dead man in a suit on a vacant estate in suburban Chicago in the middle of the night. This doesn’t sound like the normal work of a private investigator! I specialize in financial and industrial crime. It used to be that I spent a lot of time on foot, going to government buildings to look at records, doing physical surveillance and so on. But in the days of the internet, you traipse from website to website. So the famous dull moment apparently has eluded our adventurous protagonist once again just in time for book number eleven of the V.I. Warshawski series.The book delves into the HUAC era of the 1950s when artists were blacklisted for actual or alleged communist connections. The names are changed to protect the guilty. A journalist is killed (we suspect) while he is researching a book about a black dancer from the New Deal era of the 1930s. As happens occasionally with Warshawski, she finds herself in the company of wealthy people whose families are connected to questionable events in the present and past. Our intrepid PI periodically gathers in a substantial payday from her rich connections to support her in her leaner earning periods. She generally finds her life in danger at least once (and sometimes more) each book. She has used up her cat lives and then some. We have to understand and accept that this book is fiction and Ms. W- has to make it to the end of the series which is currently ongoing in its sixteenth iteration.There are different viewpoints about what Ms. W- is doing. She thinks she is “trying to figure out what all these rich important people did fifty years ago that they don’t want anyone to know about today.” The rich people think she “may not be an instigator, but you’re certainly not a bystander: you generate turmoil.” I would give credence to both points of view and they make the book most interesting.I spent the first thirty years of my life in Michigan and thought I was a good driver in snow. But V.I. beats me easily. In the book she drives north from Chicago into Wisconsin in a snow storm with a nonagenarian in the passenger seat telling her life story. In spite of the intensity of the story and the snow, V.I. not only makes it safely to their destination but solves the murder case that has left her physically battered and exhausted. She is still a Wonder Woman though she is now forty-something! I expect the get to the end of the V.I. Warshawski series sooner rather than later. And it seems likely that Sara Paretsky will still be adding books to the series once I get to the “last” one. I look forward to being caught up, waiting for the next book to be published, following Ms. W- into her fifty-somethings. Blacklist adds to the string of four star Paretsky books.
Confusing and very tedious plot makes 415 pages go slow...We've had to wait a little over two years since Paretsky's last V.I. Warshawski private eye adventure ("Total Recall"), so we anxiously dove into this new one. Soon VI stumbles across the drowned body of an "African-American" reporter whose death is attracting virtually no police attention in the wealthy Chicago suburb where his remains were discovered. Hired to look into the matter by the family, VI spends day and night trying to find virtually any clue. Much of the story involves 50-year-old happenings during the 1950's Communist "witch-hunt"; and it soon became difficult to track all the names and places and characters being described, most of whom we couldn't have cared less about. A side story about an Egyptian teenager kept in hiding, ostensibly because nothing but his national heritage had branded him to be a terrorist, did little to contribute to the plot. Rather, it served as a platform onto which the author could preach at us re the Patriot Act and American liberties being usurped post-9/11 in the name of national security.While VI was her normal competent and resourceful self, we found ourselves just slogging through the book with virtually no redeeming entertainment. Even as all the truths unravel at the end, we felt little relief or satisfaction, other than in achieving that final page. We feel it is one of the weaker entries in the otherwise fairly good VI series, and have to wonder if the author (or maybe just us) grows as tired as was our leading lady throughout most of this rather dull read.
What do You think about Blacklist (2015)?
I was a bit unsure of whether to read this book, because I've been disappointed by the more recent books by Patricia Cornwell and wondered whether V.I. Warshawski would have weathered well. However, I was delighted to find that this is a belter of a novel. Set in a Chicago reeling from 9/11 and a terrorist witchhunt, it neatly links back to a blacklist of the 1930s and the secrets of the rich first families of 'New Solway'. Of course it was linked together by a murder and Victoria breaking the rules all over the place in time honored fashion.I can't recommend this enough, it is well written and full of suspense.
—Janice
I am a busy writer not of mysteries but I have to give Ms. Paretsky 2 stars just because I finished this confusing book. I read at night in the tub and I'm a life long fan of mysteries. I read only a little every night and wanted to just give up so many times but Ms. Paretsky's writing fooled me into thinking it would eventually be worthwhile. There are so many characters and plots I would have needed my computer in the tub with me to keep track of them all. And they weren't worth it. As readers we need to feel that we are not being duped. The cast of characters were a motley crew of spoiled, unappealing and boring people sorry to say including VI Warshawski. VI in this book is as tasteless as the food she eats. The plot was so complicated and unrealistic that I just said to myself, "Yeah you just went in that filthy pond, I really believed that" Not! She comes off like a superhero without the redeeming qualities. I don't like books where I can't identify with a least one person. I particularly didn't like the young protagonist and her "boyfriend." And the way she portrays older women and VI's romantic life is so pitiful. Woman are not so one dimensional or "Let's put our lives in danger for nothing because we can't admit we miss our boyfriends. "I'm so brave and understanding of spoiled teenagers, wealthy sad women and minorities. Well it didn't show in this book. I couldn't relate to one character. I'm Latina and she wanted to write about race relations and minorities without giving the cast the passion that this difficult subject requires. I had to write a review because I have the passion to want that week of reading I'll never get back. On the positive side, Ms Paretsky can write well and I hope she does better next time. Aloha
—Marilyn Maya
VI was the first detective I fell thoroughly in love with almost ten years ago and it's her fault that I've been reading up on every female detective out there and generally haunting the mystery world ever since. So I come at these new books thrilled that they are still going and fearful that they won't live up to that first magic feeling that they induced in me when I read the whole back list back to back and was still hungry for some more. VI went into exile for a while in the latter half of the nineteen nineties and came back two books ago as a slightly older and wiser version of herself but still throwing herself into scrapes as much if not more than ever. This though was the first book where I've felt that VI has actually slowed down a little and she doesn't have to defeat the criminals by brawn alone. And on the whole I was pretty pleased with this book. I didn't find it as exhilarating as some of the earlier books and I could put it down to go to sleep but I thought that the plot was just as interesting as ever and I didn't have to get too annoyed at VI for trying to be superwoman too often (she is superwoman of course and I like her that way, I just like superwomen who know their limits and run into them sometimes.) This is very much a story set in the aftermath of September 11th 2001 and deals with a Muslim boy who is suspected of terrorism as well as linking in a plot that goes back to Communist activities in nineteen fifties America and VI has plenty to say on the state of modern America at the moment. I love having VI in the very present day and hope she stays around for a long time yet.
—Kirsty Darbyshire
