Overboard by Sara Paretsky

Published by William Morrow on May 10, 2022

I always enjoy the plot complexity of V.I. Warshawski novels, but there’s a little too much going on in Overboard. The primary story involves the mystery of a young woman who is running from a danger she won’t articulate. Subplots involve art theft, blackmail, Chicago land development shenanigans, elder abuse, vandalism of a synagogue, a drone that supposedly sucks everyone’s data from the air, and a kid who is trying to survive bad parenting. Sara Paretsky depends on unconvincing coincidences to bind the subplots together. Trimming a subplot or two might have added some urgency to an uncharacteristically slow story. Still, any Warshawski novel is worth a reader’s time, if only for the rich Chicago atmosphere.

Overboard begins with Warshawski’s dogs finding an injured teenage girl near the river. Of all the millions who inhabit Chicago, it’s an amazing coincidence that Warshawski finds the girl, but that’s a forgivable contrivance because it sets the story in motion. The girl (Julia) speaks only one word to Warshawski, a word that might be Hungarian. Warshawski takes her to a hospital that she trusts. A janitor who speaks some Hungarian makes an unsuccessful attempt to communicate with Julia. The police visit and soon the janitor is dead, Julia disappears, and the woman sharing Julia’s hospital room suffers misfortune.

Warshawski spends most of the novel eluding a corrupt police officer who is convinced that the girl gave something to Warshawski. After Warshawski is in the news for finding Julia, a teenage boy (Brad) wants her to help him discover whether his father is in trouble. Warshawski has a history with Brad’s family that does not endear his quarreling parents to Warshawski. Eventually Warshawski will need to hide Brad and Julia, both of whom possess knowledge that might endanger their lives. Part of Warshawski’s quest involves learning what the two kids have that the cops and their gangster pals are trying to make them surrender.

The story follows Warshawski as she pounds the pavement to find Julia (although the manner in which they reconnect depends on another unlikely coincidence) and pounds it some more to figure out why Julia and Brad and an elderly woman are in so much danger. Warshawski is twice taken to the Chicago Police Department’s version of Gitmo, from which she makes an extraordinarily unlikely escape. A final action scene has Warshawski playing a daring but stupidly dangerous role. None of this quite added up to a believable story.

Key plot points hinge on a small drone doing impossible things, like causing a blackout and blocking all cellphone coverage in a building. (The drone also magically absorbs all digital data contained within a building, but the plot doesn’t depend on that remarkable feature to save the heroine.) The drone’s conventional ability to take pictures is a more believable plot driver, although the picture it happened to take is — yes, once more — an unlikely coincidence.

The corruption and brutality of the Chicago Police Department is legendary. Paretsky makes it central to the plot. It is also part of the novel’s Chicago atmosphere, along with crooked real estate deals, a polluted river, and the city’s ethnic diversity. Paretsky’s novels are a joy to read for anyone who has explored Chicago. Paretsky’s prose and atmospheric writing give the novel its value, but the story is a bit ho-hum compared to other books in the series.

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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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