Mon 3 Dec 2018
SARA PARETSKY -Blood Shot. V. I. Warshawski #5. Delacorte, hardcover, 1988. Dell, paperback, June 1989.
I enjoyed Bitter Medicine, the previous adventure of Paretsky’s Chicago-based PI V. I. Warshawski, so much that I ranked it number one for the issue [Mystery*File 13, not yet online]. This one is nearly 100 pages longer, and unfortunately I don’t really think the extra pages add anything.
If it had been up to me, I’d have condensed the first 160 pages down to about 30 or so. That’s when this story of lost parents and criminal neglect in the chemical industry began to click for me. A number of good scenes follow, as well as some sharp characterization.
–Reprinted from Mystery*File #18, December 1989, very slightly revised.
December 3rd, 2018 at 3:20 pm
As with too many writers a certain bestseller bloat set-in with some later books in the series, but this remains one of the best written series in the genre and the best of the very rich sub genre of female private eyes.
December 3rd, 2018 at 8:28 pm
Paretsky has well deserved all of the accolades she’s earned over the years. I do wish, though, that the books she has wanted to write had been thinner and meaner. And had come out more often!
December 3rd, 2018 at 8:34 pm
I hadn’t meant to say that last sentence ahead of time, so I decided to check. My SOTP impression was right. Nineteen Warshawski books in 37 years, that’s all.
December 4th, 2018 at 12:01 am
I don’t want to belabor the point — and obviously I am anyway — but I have found my paperback copy of BREAK DOWN, which came out ub 2012.
It’s 470 pages of small print in the oversized mass market paperback format, I could easily read three old God Medal’s in the same amount of time as it would take me to get through this one. I’m tempted, but I’m also intimidated.