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as another reviewer said this series just keeps getting better. fantastic story line, well-fleshed out characters with real emotions. Not a pat slick thriller like the Patterson "machine" (yes I like his books too but they are fast food, this is dinner). I can't say it better than other reviewers, just wanted to leave my 5 stars.

I haven't read a Sara Paretsky book for several years and forgot how good they are. I picked this one up at the Library even though it was a "Speed Read" and I'd need to have it back in one week. It's a long book and I thought I'd need longer than that to get through it. Wrong ... I couldn't put it down and read it in two days. I must add that I am a fan of books where something happened years ago and the detective has to find long-lost information (or people) to solve it. I also like stories where I'm surprised a few times along the way (and most importantly, when we find out whodunit). Therefore, having both those attributes, this was a slam-dunk for me. Thanks, Sara Paretsky - can't wait for the next one!

I am a little over halfway through this novel - the 13th V.I. Warshawski story author Sara Paretsky has written. She started writing them when she was 32 and the protagonist, a female private investigator in Chicago, was 30. Parestsky is now 60+ and her heroine is in her 50's. I like that. It adds authenticity. But, "Hardball" has become tedious. Writing a book is not easy. Getting it published is not easy. Getting people to read it is not easy. And today, according to writer and story teller Garrison Keillor, there are 18 million authors in America with an average readership of 14; annual income of $1.75. What's a reader to do? (Who even reads my reviews, much less my own publications?) There is now software, bought by retailer's called "recommendation engines" that suggest to you what you might like, based upon what you have shown an interest in before. This is why I like Parestky, and also T. Jefferson Parker, who are taking chances with their serial novels. V.I. is getting old. Charles Hood, Parker's protagonist in his latest three novels is growing, too. Though Hood is 28 and Parker 60+. These are actually character studies, in psychological jargon, longitudinal studies of personality. I've become bored with V.I. but not Hood. Many reader/reviewers complain when the author deviates from the template, or the genre. They know what they like and that's what they want. That says more about them than the book, or blog, or whatever. I like having my mind challenged by what is possible as well as what and why something happened. That says something about me. Parker is now questioning "reality" in his crime novels. Paretsky could use some of that; but maybe that's not something she's capable of? They are both famous and well respected authors who, most likely, don't need the money. Another favorite of mine Is Richard North Patterson - he's still going strong writing about current affairs through the characters he creates. Yet there are patterns in all of these writer's works. The same themes emerge. Themes, no doubt, important to the authors, consciously or unconsciously. Writing is all about choices - what to put in, what to leave out. Life is all about choices, too. Most choices, by most most people, are made unconsciously - I think. I'm not bothered that there are 18,000,000 authors. There are, after all, 7 billion people. Write it down, I say. PUBLISH IT! Every so often I will find that diamond, and that is so thrilling and exciting. Every so often someone will say something that just makes me think about something I never thought about before and i will say, "Damn, that's some good thinking, that's a damn good idea ... you, writer, just might be on to something. Thank you. So, if you like "Vic's" attitude and approach - you'll like this. Great writing it is not. Great story ... +- ... I'd like to see V.I. have a case that demands she seek dialogue with a therapist about her "issues."

VI Warshawski is back, and as always, it's very personal, in a tale that involves her energetic young cousin Petra, her Uncle Peter and her father. A reluctant search for a missing man takes our heroine back to the archives and unwilling witness memories of 1966/1967. It's a gripping story of race and police corruption, but woven throughout the book is a tale of fear and paranoia, of the surveillance society and the difficulty of keeping secrets in this internet/twitter/cellphone age. Just who is watching you and why?

Veteran PI Victoria Warshawski loves Chicago, but she certainly is not blind to the social and political problems embedded deep into the fabric of her hometown. As Hardball opens, she is returning from a long overdue vacation to her now-deceased mother's homeland, Italy. Having made contact with her mom's family, VI feels closer than ever to her, but some of the joy has been tempered by her breakup with her boyfriend just before leaving for home. Now bummed out by her seeming inability to sustain relationships and friendships, VI returns to face the mountain of work on her desk. Pressured by a social worker into taking on a thorny, very cold missing person case, VI reluctantly begins her search. Meanwhile, her ditsy young cousin, Petra, makes a sudden appearance into her life. VI's new case proves to be a challenging and dangerous one. A deadly mixture of politics, racism, and deadly Warshawski family secret prove to be overwhelming, and it takes every ounce of VI's strength, both physically and morally, to avoid her own destruction. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and that adage certainly applies here. Once again author Paretsky brings her considerable skills to producing an intricate, nuanced novel with themes both personal and historical. History certainly can, and does, repeat itself. This is no pulp mystery, but a compelling, carefully crafted story about one person's struggle to come to grips with the uglier truths of life, without succumbing herself.

Reviews

Private investigator V. I. Warshawski returns to her South Chicago neighborhood to coach her old high school basketball team. After one of the girl's mothers asks her to investigate sabotage at a local plant, V. I.'s squabbles with the teenagers seem inconsequential as she gets caught up in a web of murder and intrigue that will jeopardize her life.

This is an enjoyable read. It is another V.I. Warshawski novel so we all know something about it. Though I like most of these novels this ones is slow, and at times tedious, but it is a good read. Always want to know what Warshawski is up to. J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

I'll admit that it's taken me a bit to tune in to the V.I.W. stories, but this one is a real winner with its feel for the characters, the social issues, the Chicago setting and above all sound and solid mystery plots. In this one, she starts somewhat reluctantly coaching a girls' basketball team and soon finds herself involved in industrial sabotage and plottings. Highly recommended

Please tell me there are not detectives like VI out on the street. WOW! Is she bad. There were four significant times in the story that she pocketed what would have been important evidence which she doesn't give over to the police, the DA or anyone. Tell me, if you find a cell phone of a missing person in the pocket of a dead man, are you going to give it away to a teenager - without even checking to see what calls had been placed? And you are in possession of extremely incriminating evidence against someone going on trial and you are going to keep it in your safe deposit box? The soap dish. Please don't get me started on the soap dish. It was so stupid. I think the thing that got me most of all was the wordiness... the long rambling stream of consciousness gibberish that made me want to plunge a red hot poker through my eye. It was the worst book I read in a long time. I can't believe I ever finished it.

Fire Sale is another strong crime novel from Sara Paretsky, and it is my favorite among her more recent V.I. Warshawski novels. While narrative and dialogue live up to reader expectations, this work is also a worthy heir to the hardboiled tradition because Paretsky does not offer a vision of life without corruption or violence: the elements that sustain them, corporate interests and greed, are too deeply ingrained in society and human nature, and Fire Sale leaves us with a gloomy vision. By-Smart is literally everywhere, its multi-national omnipresence not only manifest in the many suburban store locations all over the country, but even more so in the array of cheap consumer goods flooding lower-and middle class households and in the unwholesome, even sinister, influence the company wields on its employees' lives. Instead of gripping readers' attention by adding more and more violence to their texts, Paretsky focuses on less violent plot elements--thus allowing her work to stand out from a large segment of entertainment that so heavily depends on brutality. The violence that arises from the constellation in Fire Sale goes beyond the physical brutality that traditionally inhabits the hard-boiled detective genre as it is shaped by a dynamic of economic dependence; it is as much a violence of financial pressure through low payments, rough work conditions, and a persistent inequality. Paretsky's comprehensive vision of nuanced hard-boiled violence builds on the achievement of writers like Dashiell Hammett (especially in Red Harvest) in utilizing non-plot elements like a dilapidated landscape, economic hardship, and usage of names. If we conceive of plotted violence as loud noise, Paretsky has turned down the volume to a level that makes the sound all the more threatening. Highly recommended.