Love & Other Crimes

April 6, 2020
The 14 stories in this welcome collection from MWA Grand Master Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawksi PI series) are loosely tied together by the theme of people who kill for love in all its permutations: a sister for her brother, a child for her father, a son for the mother he never knew. Classic mystery detectives appear in two delightful homages: “The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer,” which involves Sherlock Holmes, and “Murder at the Century of Progress,” set at the 1933–1934 Chicago World’s Fair, which includes a Miss Marple-like sleuth. Two standout tales set during the Vietnam War era are “Miss Bianca,” a touching story of a little girl’s love for a laboratory mouse, and “Wildcat,” a child’s-eye view of the 1966 Chicago race riots. “Safety First,” a terrifying story set in a dystopian near future in which a female doctor is arrested for treating undocumented immigrants, feels only too possible, while “Trial by Fire,” set on the Kansas plains during Prohibition, starkly portrays a grim reality of America’s past. The love that really comes through in each story is the love and empathy Paretsky has for her all-too-human characters. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.

June 1, 2020

Paretsky continues to thrill with her latest collection filled with stories set in her home state of Kansas as well as her PI heroine V.I. Warshawski's hometown of Chicago. These 14 stories transcend time with settings ranging from the Prohibition era through the 1960s and modern day. Many of them extrapolate upon past Warshawski novels, telling stories readers never knew they needed. Vic sniffs out likely and unlikely suspects in "Love & Other Crimes" and "Is It Justice?" In "Safety First," Dr. Herschel gets sent to jail in a dystopian nightmare. "Trial by Fire" features ancestors of characters in Paretsky's novel Bleeding Kansas, a miniprequel in the making. The author pays homage to mystery authors past, such as Agatha Christie and Anna Katharine Green with letter formats, fun plot lines, and rich characterizations. In addition to heart-pounding crime fighting and sleuthing, these stories run deep with aching sketches of love and loss. Some contain scathing political commentary, with haunting versions of possible futures. VERDICT Fans of witty characters, complicated plots, stories with somber endings, and, of course, V.I Warshawski will enjoy this book.--Kay Strahan, Univ. of Tennessee Health Sciences Lib., Memphis

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2020
Fourteen stories, most dating from 1996 to 2018, about Chicago shamus V.I. Warshawski, her friends and family, and a remarkably diverse group of other people. Five of the seven stories about Warshawski are first-rate; only "Wildcat," which takes the young Victoria's family through the disruption of Martin Luther King's 1966 visit to Chicago, and "Is It Justice?" a wish-fulfillment sequel to Critical Mass (2013) in which somebody shoots a newly exonerated killer as he descends the courthouse steps, play better as politics than fiction. In the others, V.I. seeks out a student she humiliated at a high school Q&A; finds a contemporary case of plagiarism beneath a decade-old murder; hunts down her client's father only to be told that he's not her client's father; turns down a bodyguard gig on behalf of a wealthy author who begins trash-talking her every chance she gets; and, in the brand-new title story, goes to bat for her dislikable ex-neighbor's kid brother when he's arrested for murder. What's even more impressive is the variety of the other seven stories. Paretsky effortlessly masters Dr. Watson's voice in an adventure that shows Sherlock Holmes bested by an upstart American and sends Carroll John Daly's pioneering hard-boiled dick Race Williams to the 1933 Century of Progress Fair. The deftly plotted "Acid Test" shows an apostle of nonviolence arrested for bombing a neighbor's scientific institute. The charming "Miss Bianca" turns on a 10-year-old girl's solicitude for a lab mouse. The dystopian fantasy "Safety First" and "Trial by Fire," a pendant to Bleeding Kansas (2007), show off Paretsky's willingness to take risks. And "Heartbreak House," in which a romance writer's editor recommends that she consult a psychotherapist, who promptly gets killed, ends the collection on a wryly amused note. The well-wrought plots and densely imagined worlds make this the most distinguished mystery collection so far this year.

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Starred review from May 1, 2020
The complicated characters, jolting plot switchbacks, and deeply intentional themes that have made crime-fiction-virtuoso Paretsky's 20-plus novels best-sellers are all in evidence in the 14 inventive stories gathered here. Written over two decades, these mind-whirling tales showcase Paretsky's storytelling ardor, incisive wit, and abiding concern about social injustice. A personal dimension is added with the "Note" following each story, in which the author shares her inspirations. The overarching theme is how love, especially family love, can induce one to do wrong to try to make things right. Eight stories feature Paretsky's trailblazing Chicago sleuth, V. I. Warshawski, including Wildcat, a wrenching look back to her childhood in which young Victoria searches for her policeman father in the thick of the city's 1966 race riots. Both racism and sexism drive Trial by Fire, in which an encounter between a rebellious young white woman and a Native American man in 1920s Kansas turns tragic. In other gripping tales, white-collar crime turns blood-red, a young girl finds herself in the midst of Cold War germ warfare, and children are traumatized by urban gun violence. Here, too, are delectable historical crime stories, with tribute paid to Anna Katharine Green's prototypical woman detective, Amelia Butterworth, who bests none other than Sherlock Holmes. A wisely provocative and zestfully entertaining crime collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)