Book Review - Hardball by Sara Paretsky

Synopsis:  Chicago politics-past, present, and future-take center stage in New York Times-bestselling author Sara Paretsky's new V. I. Warshawski novel.

Chicago's unique brand of ball is sixteen-inch slow pitch, played in leagues all over the city for more than a century. But in politics, in business, and in law enforcement, the game is hardball.

When V. I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who's been missing for four decades, a search that she figured would be futile becomes lethal. Old skeletons from the city's racially charged history, as well as haunting family secrets-her own and those of the elderly sisters who hired her-rise up to brush her back from the plate with a vengeance. A young cousin whom she's never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign; a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence; and on the city's South Side, people spit when she shows up. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, V. I. still takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.

First Line:  "Johnny Merton was playing with me, and we both knew it."

Random Quote:  "I had forgotten the letter.  I read it through several times, missing him, missing the love that he and my mother surrounded me with.  I thought with regret, too, of the many times I let my temper get the best of me, turning difficult situations into impossible ones."

Review:  This is the 13th in Paretsky's series of novels about private investigator V.I. Warshawski.  The first one was written in 1982 so V.I. has been around for 28 years and I've read them all.

Polish market, Chicago - Image via Wikipedia

V.I. has always been an interesting character - a P.I. in the hard-boiled tough guy tradition who just happens to be a woman.  She shares just about all of the characteristics of her similar male counterparts - adrenaline junkie, prickly, rough-tempered, intelligent, serious problems with commitment.  It's been interesting to watch Paretsky develop this character and to watch her age with more or less grace depending on your perspective.  Paretsky uses V.I. to explore not just the hard-boiled tough guy genre, but also to explore the city of Chicago and its history.

In this book the history is that of prejudice, in particular events surrounding the race riots in the early 1960's.  Asked to find a young man, missing since those times, before his elderly aunt dies V.I. is off stirring up hornets' nests, getting herself injured, and generally creating trouble for everyone around her and herself.  The strong bright thread that is a constant throughout these books (and throughout V.I.'s life) is her love of her deceased parents and of her awkwardly knit together family of choice.

This isn't the best of these books, but it's still good and entertaining and a fun read.

If you haven't read these and would like to, here's a list of them all from start to finish:

• Indemnity Only (1982)
• Deadlock (1984)
• Killing Orders (1985)
• Bitter Medicine (1987)
• Blood Shot (1988) Published as Toxic Shock in the UK.
• Burn Marks (1990)
• Guardian Angel (1992)
• Tunnel Vision (1994)
• Hard Time (1999)
• Total Recall (2001)
• Blacklist (2003)
• Fire Sale (2005)
• Hardball (2009)

Reading Challenges:  Thriller & Suspense Challenge 2010, 2010 100+ Reading Challenge, 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge

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