Wed 3 Feb 2021
PI Stories I’m Reading: SARA PARETSKY “The Case of the Pietro Andromache.â€
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[2] Comments
SARA PARETSKY “The Case of the Pietro Andromache.†PI V. I. Warshawski. Novelette. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December 1988. Collected in Windy City Blues (Delacorte, hardcover, 1995). Reprinted in Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace (Berkley, paperback, 1989), and in Women on the Edge, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Dutton, hardcover, 1992).
I believe, but I am not positive about this, that this is one of few stories “Vic†Warshawski is in that is not told in first person. She’s brought in only after the fact, after her good friend Lotty has been arrested for killing another doctor in the hospital where she works. They didn’t get along to begin with, but the other man’s death occurred after Lottie had bitterly accused him of theft, that of a valuable sculpture that went missing in Europe during World War II.
Paretsky’s writing is as smooth as usual, but leaving the story to be told in third person allows Vic to do all of the detective work off stage, only to be revealed later, in a “gather all the suspects together†final scene. Even though there is one solid clue in the form of a piece of dialogue that we, the reader, are privy to, the ending I found to be mystery story light and very disappointing.
February 3rd, 2021 at 6:47 pm
Much of what makes Vic so appealing is her voice, and the personal revelations and ties to family and friends that are part of her best adventures. Stripped of most of that in basically a straight detective story some of what makes she and Paretsky distinctive are lost.
I’m guessing the needs of this plot were the reasons for the change and that this was a one off as far as Vic goes. Even the best writers, perhaps especially the best writers, experiment with voice and form once in a while to stay fresh.
February 3rd, 2021 at 9:06 pm
Yes, I think this story needed Vic’s own voice, and I missed it. I can see why the story is written the way it was, though. There really wasn’t any way to tell the story from her point of view. But forcing the attention on her good friend Lotty and her best friend, Max Loewenthal didn’t work for me, either. It is their story, but with the relationship between them taking center stage, it pushed Vic’s detective work off to the side.
To my mind, it is, as you suggest, a fine example of an author flexing her writing skills and not quite succeeding. It’s still a highly readable story.