Hard Time

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Back V.I.!
Review: 5 years was way too long to wait for another V.I. Warshawski mystery. I'd almost forgotten how good Sara Paretsky is. She has the tough, hard-bitten female P.I. thing down to a science and has set a benchmark for any others that write in this genre. This is probably her best book in this series and I heartily recommend it to anyone. V.I. is a little older than when we last saw her, but not any more afraid to take on the world. Ms. Paretsky is not afraid to take on race, gender and con discriminations and she makes it fun to read at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Sara-Thanks for bring VI back!!
Review: I've been reading VI Warshawski stories for years, actually after I saw the movie. Though at first I thought her characters (in the early books) were two dimensional, I feel in love with the way the stories read.

With Hard Time, Sara brings us back to Chicago with VI having a new office, no man in her life, and not too far past when Burn Marks ended. She does a wonderful job in showing us two ends of life from the very rich to the very poor. I enjoyed the fact that Sara was able to make you smell and breathe the environment in which VI was living in prison, as well as the various establishments of the rich-of which VI didn't feel comfortable at and that came across well.

I absolutely loved the book and hope that there will be a new one coming out soon.

Rating:
Summary: As good as ever
Review: This is a good read in the Paretsky/VI tradition: plenty of pace, readable, and gripping. The author has lost none of her touch, and the characters, not least VI herself, come across as very real. To take one example, VI has to earn a living, and so we get a detour to Georgia. Also, the prison scenes are vivid and well drawn, if very disturbing.

Note the emergence of the "wise priest" figure at the end: and VI becoming a regular attender at mass. Are we to expect a Chesterton/Graham Greene/Piers Paul Reid type of scenario in future?