Body Work by Sara Paretsky
Jan. 31st, 2015 05:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatIn my late teens I devoured all the then available V. I. Warshawski books in quick succession. Wikipedia tells me that Sara Paretsky has been writing these novels since 1982 although there have been lean patches (especially in the 90s) when they did not appear very frequently. I certainly stopped reading them at some point under the impression they were no longer being written and then discovered a new one, to my surprise, a few years back. I've now lost track a little of which one's I have read and which I haven't, although this is the first I have read in a long time.
Much as I like the novels, I've always found VI a rather exhausting character. She simply will not stop, or rest, and once she takes against someone (and quite frequently when she hasn't) she is confrontational, unstoppable and rude. Reading this at a distance of a few years, it was interesting to note that the rest of VI's world moulds itself around her. The police, for instance, despite (the book implies because of) knowing her of old give her a pretty hard time even though, in general, she is reasonably careful to keep them in the loop and aware of what she is doing and why. At the same time as being difficult and confrontational with almost everyone she meets, she also lets herself get pushed around a lot by her clients and, in this book, by her niece Petra who I found brattish and irritating. Obviously, all this stops V. I. being in anyway a perfect person, and I suppose one's frustration with her is a sign of quite how engaging the writing is, and how likeable she actually is despite her manifest flaws.
The plot itself is suitably intricate and kept me turning the pages, although it ultimately hinges on the coincidence of two conspiracies happening to cross paths. I really like Paretsky's writing style, particularly her attention to the details of everything that V. I. sees and encounters. Her Chicago is very vivid and gives a much stronger sense of place than I normally get from detective fiction. I was also entertained by the way V. I. detection methods have been updated as the Internet has taken hold.
I'm torn between thinking I should look out the V. I. Warshawski novels I don't think I've read - it looks like there are at least two published since this one came out, and the titles of some of a couple of the previous ones don't ring any bells. But then I look at my to read pile and wonder slightly if she's worth the effort.
Much as I like the novels, I've always found VI a rather exhausting character. She simply will not stop, or rest, and once she takes against someone (and quite frequently when she hasn't) she is confrontational, unstoppable and rude. Reading this at a distance of a few years, it was interesting to note that the rest of VI's world moulds itself around her. The police, for instance, despite (the book implies because of) knowing her of old give her a pretty hard time even though, in general, she is reasonably careful to keep them in the loop and aware of what she is doing and why. At the same time as being difficult and confrontational with almost everyone she meets, she also lets herself get pushed around a lot by her clients and, in this book, by her niece Petra who I found brattish and irritating. Obviously, all this stops V. I. being in anyway a perfect person, and I suppose one's frustration with her is a sign of quite how engaging the writing is, and how likeable she actually is despite her manifest flaws.
The plot itself is suitably intricate and kept me turning the pages, although it ultimately hinges on the coincidence of two conspiracies happening to cross paths. I really like Paretsky's writing style, particularly her attention to the details of everything that V. I. sees and encounters. Her Chicago is very vivid and gives a much stronger sense of place than I normally get from detective fiction. I was also entertained by the way V. I. detection methods have been updated as the Internet has taken hold.
I'm torn between thinking I should look out the V. I. Warshawski novels I don't think I've read - it looks like there are at least two published since this one came out, and the titles of some of a couple of the previous ones don't ring any bells. But then I look at my to read pile and wonder slightly if she's worth the effort.
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-31 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-01 10:09 am (UTC)You're write about Lotty though, and more so about Max - wasn't Max supposed to have spent some time in a concentration camp as a child/teenager? That would have to put him in his 80s or 90s surely?
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-01 07:10 pm (UTC)Yes, I think Max was supposed to be older than Lottie. It's difficult to engage with the later books sometimes, as VI makes the same mistakes she made when she started out. And there's a limit to how many times you want to hear Mr Contreras giving her hell and chuntering about the dogs, or Lottie giving her the cold shoulder but still bailing her out. In a long-running series, you want characters to change and grow.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-02 11:23 am (UTC)