New 06.25.05

A few years ago I was enthusiastic about Sara Paretsky's mysteries about Chicago private investigator (and non-practicing lawyer), V. I. Warshawski. Over the course of half a dozen novels, though, the character became less and less believable, more and more impulsive, and much less likable. The plots seemed to be more contrived. I decided enough was enough. I was traveling through Nebraska and stopped at Target for an Ethernet cable for my laptop and there on the rack of paperback best sellers was a new book by Paretsky. I read it evenings while Nancy and I were ogling fall in the Rocky Mountains during the days. I finished it in Nebraska on the way home. The book is Blacklist, originally published last year when I wasn't looking. It's good. The story falls into place apparently without a lot of contrivance. PI V. I. Warshawski seems much more realistic than I remember. She even takes time to read her mail, pay her bills, and meet with clients while being semi-obsessed with a murder that she's only sort of hired to investigate. Not only that, she contemplates cooperating with the Chicago police and then actually does. Paretsky's investigator is hired to check on security at an empty family mansion in an old gated community outside of Chicago. She finds a neighbor's teenage daughter, ghostly lights, and a corpse in an untended pond. Intertwined family histories among the elite of Chicago, Warshawski finds, are great places to hide family secrets, unless someone decides the secrets don't need to be hidden any longer. And a neighbor's empty house is a great place to hide a fugitive as long as no one is murdered outside. And as long as a fictional private investigator doesn't get obsessed with sorting everything out at the behest of the novelist, er, I mean, semi-reluctant clients. It's been a long time since I enjoyed Paretsky's early novels, so I really can't compare Blacklist to those. But I enjoyed this book more than driving across Nebraska -- even if the sand hills and Carhenge are more interesting than other parts of the Great Plains.

• For Astrid, a Web link for Blacklist auf Deutsch.
• Blacklist from SaraParetsky.com
• A review of Blacklist from Danny Yee