I ran across the word “aeon” in a book I just finished and then again in a book that I just started. Both spelled in this British way rather than the more common “eon”. I considered that a sign. Both books were published in 1990 and I thought that cinched it. I should move into the current era and stop considering that 1990 represents “current” in any way.Learned an important bit of information from our heroine, Ms. Warshawski , that expanded my horizons: In 1990 in Chicago you could get $90 from a cash machine. I hadn’t even been introduced to cash machines in 1990 and all the machines I have known since then have dealt solely in twenty dollar bills. Shows what you can learn reading books eons (or aeons) old. V.I. Warshawski is your average thirty-seven year old, divorced, self-employed private investigator, former public defender. Laundry, jogging, dog, third floor walkup, Cubs fan, an occasional date, an occasional attempt on her life. Normal stuff of life. Her big money case in this book is investigating the arson of an old residential hotel for the insurance company. She is also trying to help an idiosyncratic aunt, to check out the apparent overdose death of a young woman junkie and to look into some potentially crooked politics. In her spare time, her life is complicated by the hopeful amorous attentions of several men.Ms. Warshawski’s experiences and dilemmas range from the improbable to the impossible. In this book she is locked in a burning, abandoned building with her elderly aunt. She escapes in a manner that is thrilling and leaps off the page of the book but is certainly out of the range of reality. After this life threatening event in which she is badly injured, she is back on the case within days performing additional feats of daring-do. She should be the star of a super heroine comic book. But I read on in spite of my apathy about super powers. V.I. with all of her unlikeliness has captured me!V.I. breaks into the offices of a construction company in a scenario shows the age of the book. She climbs a telephone poll that has the spikes to allow a phone company worker to clamber up the poll. I remember those from fifty or more years ago, but by the time I was tall enough to reach the bottom rung, I didn’t want to climb the poll any more. No bucket trucks yet in 1990. And having broken into the office V.I. sees an apparently abandoned Apollo computer, a brand from a 1980s company. From 1980 to 1987, Apollo was the largest manufacturer of network workstations.A Smith & Wesson is Warshawski’s weapon of choice but she normally keeps it locked in a safe in her apartment. She gets it out, loads it and carries it when she thinks she is going into a very dangerous place. She gets it out, loads it and uses it in Burn Marks.She might not always be so wise in picking her friends and lovers: My stomach twisted some more. He couldn’t have tried to blow me up. We’d never been in love, but we’d been lovers for a brief sweet time. Can you want to think of a body you’ve caressed torn into ragged chunks of bleeding bones? Or did my rebuff make him want to see me so? Dum-da-dum-dum, dum-da-dum-dum-DAAASara Paretsky continues to put out a series that I want to keep reading. It is tamer at times than a lot of mystery thrillers you will find. But it definitely has sections of high drama and intensity as it builds toward a conclusion. I like Warshawski’s feminist, left leaning politics that come out occasionally. I look forward to watching our wonder woman gradually age as the series advances from year to year. And of course she defies death – she is the lead character in a series. She can’t die!Small bits of humor throughout and a few allusions to sex: Robin agreed, somewhat unwillingly. It was perhaps the hope of dinner – et cetera – with me that made him agree at all. I was going to have to build up my strength and get over a lot of wounds before I was in the humor for much et cetera. Four stars for a fun and enjoyable read. A little out of date, but what the heck. As Murray, the newspaper reporter said, “You go back to bed, kid. Once more Wonder Woman saves the city. Go to sleep.” V.I. has two years to rest up for her next big adventure in book #7 with her golden retriever and her 78 year old downstairs neighbor.
I enjoyed the book, and it was hard to put down. There are a couple of problems I had with the book that kept met from giving it higher marks. One, I found part of the solution to the mystery extremely obvious. It was so obvious that I felt as though V.I. was the worst detective on the planet for not putting the pieces together earlier. Two, I realize that V.I. is a strong feminist fighting to find a place in a role traditional occupied by a member of the all-boys club, but at times, her rhetoric goes from being a feminist champion, which I can admire, to an "I can do it all on my own, I'm right, and everyone else is wrong" attitude, which I find offputting. I hate how she sees herself as better than women who made different choices from her. Three, her contrariness, I feel as though she refuses to take advice, even if she knows its good advice just because if you say left, she'll go right. To me, this is getting into your own worst enemy territory. I know that V.I. has always had these qualities, but her annoying tendencies seemed to increase this book.As you can tell, I love the writing, I love this story and the series in general, and I'm just not sure that I really like the main character. Hopefully, her character will grow and evolve throughout the remainder of the series.
What do You think about Burn Marks (1991)?
My edition is paperback but with the same cover... It's time for my periodic diversion into mystery-land after the emotional murk of Joyce Carol Oates. We'll see how this author compares with Sayers, Hillerman, Kellerman, Connelly, Parker and Wambaugh. I've read at least one of each of them within the past few years. One category of my guilty pleasures. This one's pretty good so far. No big deal and not that much different from the same thing with a male protagonist. The demands of the genre prevail. In this book we get the usual geographic and cultural markers of place;in this case Chicago. I looked up "V.I." in my Maltin movie book. I recalled dimly a version with Kathleen Turner in the title role. Didn't go so well I guess; Maltin rated it a "Bomb".Stuck in the middle... a pretty solid story so far with one harrowing escape well described. I like that Vic seems to be getting nowhere fast in her investigation. Many tantalyzing threads hanging loose out there... I see that some GR reveiwers have found it boring and repetitive. I say that it's more "investigation realistic", as relevant as that term can be in this genre. About the ratings... this is a nice example of detective genre fiction. That means it's a 3*. PERIOD. A great example like "The Nine Tailors" gets a 4*. A transcendant effort at suspense/thriller like "Felicia's Journey" gets a 5*. Ms Paretsky ain't no William Trevor folks.And done last night. One nice thing about mystery/detective stories: they don't go on forever. The many threads of the story were brought together more or less credibly and coherently by the end and Vic proved herself a resourceful and gritty survivor. Burned, bruised, beaten, insulted, demeaned and really, really tired she emerges triumphant. Some of the "stuff" we're asked to swallow at the end are a bit indigestable but that almost always happens in these things. In this case it's the totally unforseen "hidden personality" emergence. Really??? Notes:- p.222... almost every flashlight I've ever encountered had at least two batteries unless in was a 9-volt lantern.- a Schliemann reference!- near the end Vic considers the possibility of hers and Elena's "tragic" end. Tragic? Traumatic and sad maybe...3.25 stars...
—Chris Gager
The writing and the characters of this novel are decent, but I just couldn't get very excited over it. I don't know who is imitating who, and it doesn't matter, because it just seems like the same old stuff.The plot is decent enough and offers some good suspense. V.I.'s alcoholic aunt shows up in the middle of the night declaring that her building has burned down. Soon, V.I. is in the middle of an arson investigation and it seems everyone wants her to butt out. However, what annoys me is the similarities between this series and Sue Grafton's alphabetical mystery series.Both are strong independent women.Both have a gentle, good natured, older male neighbor that looks after them.Both drive crappy old cars.Both get mixed up romanticly with the bad guys from time to time.Both have trouble making ends meet.Both eat odd things from their kitchen cabinet to keep going.I'm not saying that either author realy emulates the other.. but they are similar enough that after awhile I have to ask myself what letter of the alphabet I'm on. So for me, it was like reading a familiar western novel where you know a range war is going to break out, or you know that some rustling is going on, or something else that just seems so familiar that it just doesn't seet to tread new ground.Chicago-ites might enjoy this story more than I did.. It suggests that Chicago politics are full of crooks and double-dealers (gasp!) and further the streets and highways might be familiar enough to be more fun.so, I didn't partticular hate this one.. just didn't get very excited over it.
—David
Feels remarkably fresh for having been published 21 years ago (which I didn't realized when I checked out the e-book - I must have read this before when it was newer, but didn't recall any of the plot). VI Warshawski goes about her business (using transparencies and filing cabinets and not owning a computer) and when trouble finds her, she faces it using her fierce intelligence and sticking to her principles. The supporting characters are vivid and entertaining, and the mystery is enjoyably knotty. I'll have to get back up to date on this series.
—Leilani
