Blacklist

Sara Paretsky is back with all cylinders firing and Blacklist, in which her dogged heroine VI Warshawski makes a very welcome reappearance, is quite as deliciously convoluted and incident-packed as the author's best work. Victoria Iphegenia has taken a battering in the last few books, but is back as resourceful and tenacious as ever.

Here, Paretsky dispatches her Chicago private investigator on a particularly surrealist adventure. VI takes a tumble into a dark overgrown pond while on night-time surveillance at a secluded mansion and encounters a dead journalist in the weeds. The subsequent police investigation strikes her as cursory and VI puts this down to the fact that the victim was black and that her body turned up in a well-heeled white residential area. As always, miscarriages of justice and police indifference have a galvanizing effect on Warshawski, who believes the death is not suicide but murder and her own investigations uncover some dark family secrets.

As often before, the police place obstructions in her path--but this time it appears to be two separate police departments and some very well-placed and influential people. Things are complicated by VI's involvement in another case--a youth with a possible terrorist background who is persona non grata with the government after 9/11. This is Paretsky as her admirers like her: Warshawski taking a dive into a heady brew of corruption, both personal and political. --Barry Forshaw

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A Cynical Look at Politics and the Wealthy - Rated
Fine novels have always transcended their story lines to say something more universal about the way people are. Often, mystery novelists get caught up in their plots and fail to make an important statement. In Blacklist, Ms. Sara Paretsky provides an intriguing look at American politics, racism and sexism over the last century. It's an impressive job of impugning the motives and methods of the influential, powerful and wealthy in our society. Those who are ardent conservatives will hate this book. It isn't as tough on the liberals as it is on the conservatives during most of the book, and argues strongly against government challenges to our Constitutional rights, such as the Patriot Act and the Congressional search for Communists in the 1950s.

The mystery is a fine one, and makes good use of the over 400 pages to develop the story slowly . . . allowing it to age in your mind like fine wine does. I especially liked the way that V.I. encountered many emotional and physical problems during the story that delayed and complicated her investigations, much like happens in real life.

The book has two main weaknesses. First, it is too often preachy rather than illustrative or instructive. Second, Ms. Paretsky is too cynical for my taste about how much the powerful can get away with. She leaves us with the sense that we are powerless to protect those we love and ourselves from what the powerful want for their own personal agendas. Otherwise, I would have happily assigned this book five stars.

I would like to commend Ms. Paretsky for working some of the worst characteristics of the Patriot Act into her story, illustrating problems that too few people are aware of.

The story itself has two entertwined plot lines that coincidentally connect up on an empty estate. Late one night, V.I. is poking around to discover the source of some mysterious lights inside the supposedly locked and secure empty mansion. V.I. spots a teenager on the grounds and grabs a clue from her that leads to identifying who the teen is. Then, while traipsing around in the dark, V.I. falls into an ornamental pond . . . and discovers a dead man. The police aren't very interested in what happned to the dead man, and V.I.'s persistence is essential to reveal what really happened. Is he connected to the mysterious lights?

As I finished the story, I found myself thinking about Iago and all of the trouble he causes for Othello through his misrepresentations. We should be careful about how much we trust those in power. They may have hidden agendas that we are unaware of.

Keep out of the water VI! - Rated
Paretsky entwines American post-Sept 11 paranoia with 50s McCarthyism in a way which works well - her gentle political awareness makes an enjoyable backdrop to an easily paced and intelligent story with enough characters to keep my interest. The only drawback is that VI keeps on getting wet, and every time she does she gets a cold, of course...too much information, Ms Paretsky - you don't need this to bring her to life; her attitudes, observations and emotions are quite engaging enough without us being expected to care about her health.

Pretty good - Rated
I like VI Warshawski. I've been following her adventures for quite a while now and there's plenty of adventure in this novel. For story, this rates five stars. The central plot has the usual twists and turns and races along nicely. As always though you care more about how VI solves it than the solution itself.

The main plot is set against the backdrop of 9/11 and while this is worthy and a good idea, for me it didn't quite work. Particularly in the first chapter which felt like a critical overview of current US policy rather than a novel in places. However Paretsky does use this background effectively in the rest of the novel to comment on the current political and social situation in the US via VI's views. Given that she's always been a political animal this works well with her character and adds depth to the novel.

The biggest problem in this piece of work was VI's soppiness over current beau, Morrell, who is absent overseas for most of the novel. Her moping felt totally contrary to the character we've come to know and love. And not only that, but it wasn't even properly integrated - it felt like the novel had been written and someone realised VI needed a love interest and so a few sentences here and there were hastily added.

But to round off on a positive note, all the background characters (and animals) we've come to know and love make their usual contributions. And the new characters introduced, particularly the two matriarchs, are great.

Overall this is well worth reading if you are a VI fan. But if you haven't read any of this series before, I'd advise starting with a different novel.