Sara Paretsky
Hard Time
Dell Publishing 1999
ISBN 0-440-29578-5
Christina says:
Late at night private investigator V. I. Warshawski almost runs over a
woman lying unconscious in the street. After she dies in hospital Vic is
persecuted by the aggressive detective Lemour and is charged with a
hit-and-run offense. Many of her clients desert her. The man behind all
this is Robert Baladine, head of the security company Carnifice. Vic has
to stand up to him to save her livelihood – and her life. And the key to
it all seems to be hidden in the women’s prison Coolis, a facility run
by Carnifice.
V. I. Warshawski is back. As usual she fights the rich and powerful
people of Chicago and as usual Sara Paretsky has written a book that is
hard to put down. The carefully researched chapters that take place in
prison were especially haunting. Having read them it should be impossible
to believe that the inmates of those facilities are on some sort of
vacation funded by law-abiding taxpayers.
HARD TIME is also an opportunity to meet up with old friends from the
Warshawski series like Vic’s old friend Lotti, her indestructible
neighbor Mr. Contreras and the reporter Murray Ryerson. Just like Vic they
are no static characters but get older, evolve, and change in their
relationship with Vic. I couldn’t help but ask myself for how many books
Vic can stand being physically harmed like that, though.
Neither Paretsky nor her heroine seem tired after ten books and I hope
they stay that way. |
