My review of HARDBALL, the 13th installment of the V.I. Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky, appears at the Barnes & Noble Review today. Here's how it opens:
To understand the current state of mind of both Sara Paretsky and her private detective alter ego, one must first roll back the clock to 1982, when Victoria Iphegenia Warshawski took her first investigative bow in Indemnity Only. Both Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett had been dead for over two decades; Kenneth Millar, better known as Ross MacDonald, wouldn't succumb to Alzheimer's for another year, while John D. MacDonald had two more Travis McGee novels to publish before his 1985 death. Robert B. Parker was the king of neo-private eye fiction, his hero Spenser both homage and contemporary reworking of the Marlowe-esque knight errant in search of lost selves, with Lawrence Block, James Crumley and Bill Pronzini not far behind in critical and commercial acclaim. The Private Eye Writers of America, an organization of established and emerging mystery writers in this still-fecund subgenre, was about to give out its very first Shamus Awards to the best books of the previous year. And the only novel featuring an American woman as gumshoe, Marcia Muller's Edwin of the Iron Shoes, had been published in 1977 to little fanfare.
By the end of 1982 the game changed. Muller published her second Sharon McCone novel, Sue Grafton introduced Kinsey Millhone in A Is For Alibi, and the floor was now open -- whether some liked it or not -- for more women to claim the tropes of private eye fiction for their own. As influential as Muller and Grafton became, McCone and Millhone invited readers to take in their world, to root for them as they uncovered secrets and local ills. Their characters developed and darkened and the authors have lately taken some interesting narrative steps, but one finishes their books with a sense of order more or less restored....
Read on for the rest, and my take on how V.I.'s "burning anger, wrath and indignation," to crib from the Passover Seder (I know we're in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but so is the book's publication date) takes shape and form with this particular socially charged story.
Sara Paretsky is my all time favorite. I hadn't wanted to read any reviews until I read her book. However your review lent itself to increasing my desiere to read the book. Thank you for a thoughtful review.
Jo Ann Hernandez
BronzeWord Latino Authors
http://authorslatino.com/wordpress
Posted by: Jo Ann Hernandez | September 22, 2009 at 11:38 AM
I heard her speak at an American Popular Culture conference once where she told the story of how hard it was to get a series based in Chicago off the ground with publishers in 1980. They didn't think anyone would be interested in a female PI from Chicago. HA!
Posted by: Patti Abbott | September 22, 2009 at 01:32 PM