Dead Land by Sara Paretsky

Published by William Morrow on April 21, 2020

Dead Land is Sara Paretsky’s twentieth V.I. Warshawski novel. I haven’t read them all, but I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read, Dead Land included. Paretsky always mixes Chicago’s colorful history and atmosphere into a solid, traditional detective story. Much of Dead Land takes place on Chicago’s south side, in parkland near Lake Shore Drive.

V.I.’s goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard, is coaching a preteen girls’ soccer team that is sponsored by the South Lakefront Improvement Council (SLICK). V.I. and Bernie attend a SLICK meeting where the team is scheduled to be given some love. Before that can happen, the meeting addresses a plan to fill in part of the lakefront with a sand beach, some playground equipment, and maybe a nice restaurant or bar. The presentation is interrupted by a protestor named Coop who believes there is more to the proposal than they are being told. Naturally, the Chicago cops hustle Coop away so that the people in power can continue steamrolling the unsuspecting neighborhood residents.

V.I. and Bernie make their way into the park, where they hear Lydia Zamir singing a song called “Savage” that earned her a loyal following. Lydia is now homeless and a bit feral, playing her music on a toy piano and deathly afraid of anyone who comes near her. V.I. wants to help her, but Coop arrives and establishes himself as Lydia’s protector.

V.I. recounts all of this to her reporter friend, Murray Ryerson, who thinks there is a story in (1) the resurfacing of Lydia and (2) the plan to build a little beach area that might actually be a plan to do something else. When the news breaks about Lydia, her fans flock to the area, enraging Coop. After Lydia disappears, V.I. learns that Lydia went off the deep end four years earlier when environmental activist Hector Palurdo was killed by Arthur Morton, a sniper who carried out a mass shooting. Lydia was standing onstage next to Palurdo when he was shot. The law firm that swooped in to defend the mass killer got a restraining order against Lydia when she seemed to be losing it.

Paretsky's intricate plot involves nefarious developers, sneaky lawyers, corrupt politicians, a disputed South American inheritance, and a multitude of murders. Coop is suspected of killing the man he interrupted at the SLICK meeting, but V.I. has her doubts. She’s more interested in finding Lydia, as is the law firm that Lydia allegedly harassed. The more V.I. digs into Lydia’s history, the more she suspects a connection to murders — and to attempts to murder her —although the connections are elusive. The reader is invited to join V.I. as she juggles the puzzle pieces until they can be assembled into a recognizable picture.

The reader need not fear being overwhelmed by all the players and clues because Paretsky provides internal summaries to keep the details alive in the reader’s memory. She balances action scenes with pavement pounding detective work to keep the story moving at a good pace. The central characters are well established and offer no surprises, but Coop and Lydia give Paretsky a chance to explore damaged but decent individuals who are struggling with mental health issues in different ways. Paretsky writes about the unfortunate with compassion while entertaining the reader as V.I. unravels a challenging mystery one thread at a time.

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