It’s a Privilege Just to Be Here, by Emma Sasaki****

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Emma Sasaki makes her fictional debut with the darkly amusing story of a mother and daughter caught up in a scandal at a prestigious private school. My thanks go to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio galley. This book is for sale now.

Wesley Friends School is the prep school to which presidents and other high placed politicos send their teens, a place where they are nurtured as completely as any hot house flower, and then sent onward, hopefully to an ivy league college. Aki Hiyashi-Brown abandons her PhD and accepts a teaching job there in order for her daughter, Meg, to be able to attend; otherwise the tuition would be impossibly expensive. The school is overwhelmingly Caucasian, and so perhaps it’s unsurprising that Aki finds her face prominently displayed on all of the promotional materials the school disseminates, along with those of the few other teachers of color.

That’s all fine and good until the day when the fence outside is vandalized by spray paint reading, “Make Wesley white again.” Aki is ready to do what she’s been taught from the cradle: keep her head down, do her job, and not say anything. But Meg and her classmates have no intention of remaining silent. Before she knows it, Aki finds she has been assigned to be the head of the Racial Equity Task Force, a token job on a token committee that has more to do with appearances than with any actual desire for change.

She is given a script to follow and told not to offer up any of her own observations or opinions.

Soon, things spiral beyond the control of Wesley’s administration, and Aki is caught between doing what her bosses want her to do, and supporting her daughter and students in their quest for genuine change.

This book, which the author notes is based on her own experience, has me at hello. Though I am not a wealthy or connected individual, I did send my child to a private school for a few years, one which was very white, and which used my half-Japanese daughter’s face on its pamphlets a lot. I can’t not read this book, and whenever I have earbuds in, this is what I listen to. I find it well paced and engaging, setting just the right tone without over-moralizing or becoming strident. There are some great side characters as well; I like Aki’s husband and mother particularly, and appreciate the bond between Aki’s half-Japanese daughter and her Issei (first generation) grandmother.

However, my own husband is also Issei, and I asked him to listen to the reader during one of the many passages in which the grandma speaks to Aki in Japanese. “Is this reader’s Japanese as good as I suspect?” I asked, somewhat proud of my first year Japanese skills. He listened to two lines, laughed, and shook his head.

For this, I really do have to knock one star off my original five star rating. Perhaps if I had a digital review copy I could have rated that version higher, but I have what I have, and it’s problematic. Nevertheless, I appreciate this novel and the message it delivers, and I greatly look forward to reading whatever Sasaki publishes next.

House of Glass, by Sarah Pekkanen***-****

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3.5 stars, rounded upwards.

Author Sarah Pekkanen is known for writing psychological thrillers, and her newest novel, House of Glass, is a real page turner. My thanks go to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public August 6, 2024.

Our protagonist is Stella Hudson, and she works as guardian ad litem, which is a professional whose job it is to represent the best interests of a child when he or she is the subject, or an important participant in, a court case. Stella’s father figure and mentor is a judge, and a case has come up that he feels Stella is uniquely qualified for. It’s a divorce case, two wealthy individuals squabbling over a child. The child, Rose Barclay, has experienced a great trauma that has left her mute. She saw her nanny fall (be pushed?) out of the attic window and die, and she hasn’t spoken since. By convenient coincidence, Stella also experienced the same condition after a childhood trauma of her own; this is why Charles, her mentor, has asked her to serve.

I’ll tell you right now, I am not terribly impressed with this book. A protagonist who’s been traumatized in ways related to her task at hand is fast becoming a trope, and I’m ready to be done with it. Rose is a prodigy, brilliant in every way, which is also overused, and very convenient for an author that doesn’t want to deal with developmental stages even though the child is a major character. Also, Stella’s job does not require her to solve the nanny’s murder, that’s the job of the cops. Yet the book leads us to believe that this is part of a guardian ad litem’s work.

But the most annoying facet of this mystery is that I had it solved before the 20% mark. That’s just straight up ridiculous. If I had solved it because I am so darned clever, that would be one thing, but I feel as if my cat could probably have done the same. First, a suspect that’s identified very early in the story is almost never the killer, and then of course, the person least suspected by the other characters is often the one that did it. And so at first I waited hopefully for some new spin or plot twist that would make me change my mind, but it never damn happened.

Consequently, I was prepared to give this book a rating of 3 stars, which is lower than my average, but one thing stopped me. I noticed that, however cranky I felt about this transparently obvious mystery, I didn’t want to stop reading it. I could have quit at the halfway mark, skimmed the ending to be certain I was right, and then written my review, yet even though I knew exactly how it would shake out, I still wanted to see/hear the rest of the story.

I was fortunate in having both the digital review copy and the audiobook, and the narrator, Laura Benanti, does a first rate job. That’s worth something, too.

Because of the fact that Pekkanen’s mysteries are beginning to feel formulaic, I am probably finished with this author, but I also think there are a great many readers that will like it. Nevertheless, my recommendation to you is to get it free or cheap, rather than to pay full cover price.

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, by Helen Simonson*****

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Helen Simonson is the author of the bestselling novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. With her new release, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, she is once more in her element, creating believable characters and using them to skewer the pervasive racism and class snobbery of Britain, and also, in a smaller way, that of the U.S.  With outstanding word smithery and an unflagging pace, this historical novel should be number one on your summer reading list.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The year is 1919; the place is England. Constance Haverhill has been ousted from her job running an estate; the Great War has ended, and now the women that have been gainfully employed and done a fine job are unceremoniously ejected so that their jobs may go to the men that have returned from the conflict. For the time being, she has a position as a traveling companion to a family friend who’s recuperating at the seashore; once this situation ends, she has no idea where she’ll go or what she’ll do.

Out of nowhere comes Poppy, a daring young woman from a wealthy family. Poppy wears trousers and drives a motorcycle; she befriends Constance and sweeps her into her motorcycle club. Things become even more interesting when Poppy purchases a used biplane to bring home to her brother Harris, a handsome but severely depressed young man who’s lost a leg in the war. At one point he laments, “They look at me as if my brain has gone missing along with the leg. Or rather they refuse to look at me at all.”

Poppy is utterly fearless, challenging local authority and promoting women’s rights. She doesn’t care about the opinions of others; her eye is set on the horizon. And she can do that, because she has a soft nest in which to land. At the same time, Constance is always aware of the stark class division that prevents her from behaving as Poppy does.

“Respectability was the currency in which Constance knew she just trade for the foreseeable future. She…did not have Poppy’s wealth and position from which to defend herself against notoriety.”

There are a number of amusing side characters whose less progressive attitudes contrast with Poppy’s. The two women—also very wealthy—on the adjoining estate sniff at her exploits and declare them to be unladylike. The class division is also highlighted when Constance is offered a position with the hotel where she and Mrs. Fox, the family friend she accompanies, are staying. However, she is told that once she accepts the offer, she can no longer be a guest at the hotel, nor may she use the restaurant, which is a frequent gathering place of Constance’s new friends. No hobnobbing with the clientele will be tolerated; she must use the back door. Constance reflects to herself that wherever she goes, her friend Poppy will use the front door.

Britain’s racist attitudes toward people of color is also featured here, but in a way that does not hijack the plot. There’s an Indian guest of the hotel that is snubbed left and right; at one point, an American visitor attempts to have him excluded from the social events to which he’s been invited. This is resolved in a deeply satisfying manner, as is the issue of taboo friendships formed by Mrs. Fox.

If I could change one thing, it would be to add a bit more nuance. The bad characters are oh so bad; and while the good characters make the occasional mistake, we never doubt their complete goodness. However, this is a minor bone to pick, and overall this is a delightful book.

Highly recommended.

Rednecks, by Taylor Brown*****

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“Law only serves them that’s in power. Ain’t no different than always…’Tis the victor who writes the history—and counts the dead.”

I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of author Taylor Brown since reading Gods of Howl Mountain, which was published in 2018. His new novel, Rednecks, is out now, and as with his earlier work, it is outstanding. My great thanks go to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review.

Brown tells the story of the Battle of Blair Mountain, a very real large scale battle, complete with machine guns, helicopters, tens of thousands of angry, armed miners, and the U.S. Army, an event which really did take place in the Appalachian Mountains in 1921. Over a million rounds were fired, and then the story was suppressed by the government, bosses, and big business media.

 In his author’s note, Brown tells us that the character of Dr. Muhanna, a heroic individual sympathetic to the cause of the miners, is based on his own great-grandfather. There is a meaty explanation of what parts of the story are based on the actual historical record, and what parts—small ones, to be sure—he has changed.

Apart from his skill as a writer and researcher, the thing that I have always loved best about Brown is his deep respect for the working class. It shines through every page of this novel. Mother Jones, the fiery Socialist labor organizer, is here as well, and she is possibly my favorite figure in American history. Unfortunately, she is not at her best here. Past ninety years of age and in poor health, she attempts to deceive the miners into quitting their struggle early once she learns that Washington, D.C. intends to send troops. It’s a pity that her many years of inspirational organizing and leadership are not on display here, but the facts are the facts, and this story is not, after all, chiefly about Mother, but about the miners, so I suppose that Brown has written it in the only honest way that it could be written. There are indeed passages that demonstrate her eloquence and loyalty to workers of every race and ethnicity.

As I read, I like to highlight passages to include as quotes in my review. This time, I came away with 53 quotes. Reluctantly, I am setting most of them aside; you will have to find them yourself. They’re better within the context of the story, anyway.

As a personal aside, I will mention that my own grandfather—“Papaw”—died of Black Lung disease in 1978 after having worked in a nonunion mine in South Dakota beginning in the eighth grade. He had to leave school and work fulltime, as there was not a social net back then, and he and his family would have starved if he had done otherwise. World War II brought him better fortunes, but coal dust, once lodged in the lungs, never leaves.

This is a gritty tale to be sure, one full of bloodshed and suffering, but also of immense courage and inspirational leadership. I read it in small bites lest it work its way into my dreams, until I reached the climax, at which point I had no choice in the matter, and was unable to put it down. This book is one of the year’s best. I highly recommend it to those that love labor history, historical fiction, or that just love a well-told story.

Codename Nemo, by Charles Lachman****

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3.5 stars, rounded upward.

Code Name Nemo is the true story of how U.S. Naval Commander Dan Gallery and his men captured a German U-boat during World War II. My thanks go to NetGalley, Diversion Books, and Dreamscape Media for the review copies. This book will be available to the public June 4, 2024.

German U-boats were brilliantly engineered submarines that were the terror of the seas for Allied forces in the Atlantic theater during World War II. They were extremely difficult to detect, and were responsible for sending not only Allied ships, but also Merchant Marine vessels and other commercial craft to the bottom of the ocean. Until Gallery took the initiative to capture one, the U.S. Navy had been hard pressed just to sink the treacherous subs rather than be sunk by them. To capture one was an intelligence coup of the highest order, providing the Allies with not only the technical details of the U-boats themselves, but also a host of military secrets kept onboard, including the codes that in turn led to the plans and locations of other German subs.

No Naval officer had even attempted such a thing before. Nazis were expected to destroy their subs rather than allow them to be taken; this, even if it meant all or part of the crews had to drown with the vessels. But lately, it was known that there were sailors that were conscripted and who were not Germans, men from conquered European nations. Gallery believed that some of these men would now choose to surrender and live, rather than drown themselves for the Fuhrer. Gallery was right.

Lachman does a presentable job of describing the events leading up to the sub’s capture, and he chooses to tell it from dual perspectives, and so we see it through both American eyes and those of the Germans. I am not a fan of this trend. For starters, I don’t see this as a good time, if such exists, to depict Nazis as warm and fuzzy fellows that just happened to be on the losing side of history. Furthermore—and I’ve said it before, so forgive me if you are my longtime reader and growing sick of my saying this—you never see historical writers take this tack when detailing the events of the Pacific theater. It’s as if there’s an implied requirement, saying, Look here. We are all (Caucasian) human beings, after all.

That aside, I enjoyed this book, particularly the most exciting part when they board the sub and have to prevent its exploding, or sinking fast along with the U.S. sailors that have come on deck. There is a certain amount of information dumping up front that slows things down a bit up front, and that might also confuse a reader or listener trying to remember the many names and personal histories of those involved. I can see the reasoning behind all of it; some of those mentioned in this book will have descendants that swell with pride as they hear of the courage and cleverness of their great-great whatevers, and who may be devastated to see their late relative omitted. However, the narrative would flow better if the details were streamlined.

I primarily use the audio version, with the Kindle version as backup for rechecking facts. Some of the time I used both at once. Qarie Marshall is the reader for the audio, and does an outstanding job of taking me back in time, once the story gets moving.

The research is adequate, but not stellar. Certain sources get the lion’s share of use, primarily Dan Gallery himself, who has written at length about his experience. I found myself wondering, from time to time, if I would have been better served to read his own account rather than this one. But by then I had this one well underway, so I went with it.

Those that enjoy military history might enjoy this story, and for them, I rate this book four stars. As a general read for history buffs, it may be more of a three star read. If you are the latter and considering reading it, you may want to get it free or cheap, rather than investing full cover price.

Like the Appearance of Horses, by Andrew Krivak****

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I first read Andrew Krivak in 2017, when The Signal Flame was published. His glorious prose is something few authors can match. Here we have another novel involving many of the same characters and to an extent, the same setting. I am happy to get back to it.

My thanks go to NetGalley, Highbridge Audio, and Bellevue Literary Press for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

One of the things that initially drew me to Krivak’s writing is that he occupies a sparsely populated niche with his historical fiction. Who else writes about the Romani Resistance of World War II? Who writes about Romani refugees? Most authors are as susceptible as anyone else to trend following and bandwagonism. Krivak is not. He sets his own course, and he does it with spellbinding prose and sterling self-discipline.  

Here we see three generations of men that go to war, starting with World War II, then to a P.O.W. camp during the Vietnam War, and finally, to Iraq. This is a rough read, friends. There’s just about every possible trigger, so if you’re protecting the more tender parts of your mind, you may need to pass on this one. On the other hand, if you are looking for a catharsis to bring about a good ugly cry, rush out and get this book right this minute.

Krivak doesn’t write page turners; instead, he draws me in and makes me forget where I am and what I was doing a minute ago. His work is deeply absorbing and at times, moving.

Narrator Jamie Renell gives a flawless performance here. The book is tightly plotted enough, however, that the listener needs to pay careful attention. I had both the audio and ebook formats, and I still got confused once in awhile and had to backtrack.

If I could add one more thing to ice Krivak’s literary cake, it would be a well developed female character. The women that appear here seem to have been planted for the purpose of developing the male characters. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and Krivak has crafted this story around a set of actual people and events, though he says it’s a loose representation, and so I can see why he chooses to focus on the men that go to war; yet, since he is taking a few liberties anyway, would it hurt so very much to send off a soldier girl?

This complaint is a minor one. Krivak is a badass, and I do recommend this book to you.

Instrument of Darkness, by Charlie Parker*****

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It’s a funny thing about long running series, how some of them become stale after a time while others just keep building. The Charlie Parker series by John Connolly is one of the latter, and with every addition to it I am more riveted, more amused, and more engaged than I was before. The Instruments of Darkness is the 21st in the series. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler for the review copy; that said, this is one of the rare times that I would have laid out full jacket price if that was the only way I could obtain a copy.

This book is for sale now.

Charlie Parker is a former cop turned private detective with a terrible past. He stepped out to buy a newspaper one morning and returned to find his wife and small daughter savagely butchered; the guilt at not being home to defend them was overwhelming, if irrational. He dedicated himself to finding the person that had done it, and making certain they never did it again. Since then, he’s served as a professional snoop on behalf of other wronged persons. Because he often upsets people with money, power, and twisted morals, he often brings along his own muscle when he works, or in some cases, contracts with them to bodyguard his clients during the process. So it is this time.

The job has to do with a young mother whose baby has been kidnapped from its crib during the night. Colleen woke from the first sound sleep she’d had in forever only to find the nursery window open, and Henry gone from his bed. Later her husband Stephen finds a blanket in the trunk of her car, soaked in blood, which, when analyzed by law enforcement, turns out to be the boy’s blood. Stephen tells the police that he is sure she must have done it, and he leaves her.

But she didn’t. Of course not.

In his last few Charlie Parker novels, Connolly has added touches of horror and magical realism, and it’s only made his stories better. In particular, he is adept at sentient houses or other buildings. Sometimes it really is the structure; at other times there’s some sort of being that lives there, unseen. In this case it’s an old house built from a Sears Roebuck kit over a century ago, and so he names it “Kit No. 174,” and after it appears a time or two in the story, generally as the opening of a new chapter, I get the shivers just seeing the name. The narration tells us, “No one had ever spent long in it—or no one had ever lived in it for long, which is not the same thing. No, not the same thing at all.” There are some minor references to other houses that have appeared in the series, and these will delight the faithful readers that remember them; it did me. However, newbies that are just starting this series will be fine.

The recurring characters shine brightly here. The attorney that often hires Parker, Moxie Castin, opens the book, and we get a resonant character sketch:

“Moxie Castin was easy to underestimate, but only on first impression. He was overweight by the equivalent of a small child, didn’t use one word in public when five others were loitering nearby with nothing better to do, and had a taste for ties reminiscent of the markings of poisonous insects or the nightmares of LSD survivors…He lost cases, but not many, and his friends far outnumbered his enemies.”

Other recurring characters are the Fulci brothers, and when I see their names, I smile. They’re described as “two wrecking balls in human form.” Another is Sabine, a shy, tortured psychic that just wants the dead to go away and leave her alone, and best of all, Angel and Louis, a lawless couple of friends—the word “couple” applies in two different ways here—that Parker hires when things get spicy. If I smile when we are joined by the Fulcis, I beam when I see Angel and Louis. And in a nod to series regulars, there’s a point when Parker simply tells someone, “They’re coming,” and he doesn’t say who, but of course, we know exactly who. (Later he explains them for the uninitiated.) There’s a favorite passage of mine in which Parker is concluding an interview, done in a restaurant, and when he and the other person emerge, she sees them and asks,

“Are they with you?’

“They’re my associates.’

“They don’t look like private detectives. Don’t take this the wrong way, but they look like criminals. If they came into the store, I’d lie down on the floor with my hands behind my head.’

“Sometimes that’s precisely the effect we seek.’”

Oh, there’s so much more, but you need to find these things for yourself. The story is on the gritty side, but not nearly as much so as some of the others in the series. In fact, I generally have a policy of not reading this series at bedtime, lest it enter my dreams. I violated that policy once, and I did indeed have a dreadful night afterward. And so I behaved myself until I hit the last twenty percent, and at that point, I knew I would read it until it was done, regardless of the time or proximity to lights out, because I had to see the resolution. I had guessed, long before, whodunit, but that felt beside the point. So I stayed up and saw it through…and I’m not a bit sorry.

Highly recommended to those that love the genre, and especially to Charlie Parker buffs.

Summers at the Saint, by Mary Kay Andrews****

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Summers at the Saint is the latest novel by veteran author Mary Kay Andrews. I am not usually a fan of what I think of as light and fluffy books, but over the last couple of years, I’ve developed an appreciation for this author’s work. This story centers on a fashionable beach resort hotel and those that run it, with the focus primarily on the women. It’s a good summer read—not a bad choice to take to the beach, actually. My thanks go to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public May 7, 2024.

Our protagonist is Traci Eddings, the young widow of Hoke Eddings, heir to the Saint Cecilia resort. Traci has inherited part of the business from her late husband, but there is a power struggle in play as the book opens. The old man is dying, and the surviving heirs are scheming. The business seems to be on the rocks, or near to it, and Traci can’t figure out why. She makes several smart changes, hires good people, and yet…

We have interesting side characters. Parrish is Traci’s niece, whom she persuades to postpone her studies for one more summer as Traci implements the changes that are needed. We have the new cook, Felice, as well as Livvy, a capable young woman that Traci hires away from the diner where she is waiting tables; and we have Livvy’s mother Shannon, who used to be Traci’s best friend. Shannon completely dumped Traci many years ago, leaving Traci bewildered and hurt; she still feels that way. Lastly we have Whelan, who is working at the Saint as a pretext while he tries to unravel the circumstances that led to the death of his younger brother at the resort’s pool many years ago.

The book’s strongest aspect is the side characters, particularly Felice, Shannon and Livvy. Other characters are one dimensional, either entirely good or entirely awful. Rather, this is a plot based book. There are a great many moving parts, with a blend of genres that include romance, mystery, beach reads, women’s fiction, and contemporary family drama. It is in weaving the many pieces of this story that Andrews’s experience shines through. If there is a plot element that conflicts with another, or that is simply illogical, I didn’t spot it. At the end, everything and everyone is accounted for; in fact, I might have preferred not to have every single aspect resolved, and every positive character quite so perfectly happy. I seldom argue in favor of ambiguity, but in this case, it wouldn’t hurt.

I was fortunate enough to receive both the Kindle and audio versions, and once more, Kathleen McInerney does a fine job of narration with all of the women characters and the internal monologue. Her voice isn’t deep enough to voice the men’s characters well, and I suggest adding a second, male narrator next time around.

The story held my attention quite nicely as I did my morning bike ride, and I recommend it to Andrews’s loyal readers, and to those that enjoy a good beach read.

The Morningside, by Tea Obreht****

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In 2019, Tea Obreht blew me away with Inland, a work of historical fiction—alternative history actually—so creative that I haven’t stopped thinking about it to this day. Her new book The Morningside is a dystopian novel that, while not as remarkable as the previous effort, is both intriguing and memorable.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Silvia, and she and her mother are refugees from a homeland made dangerous by violent political turmoil. They were invited to live in The Morningside, a once grand old building fallen into disrepair by the flooding that comes with climate change. Silvia’s aunt, who arrives first, and her mother are to be caretakers and participate in the resettlement program.

At eleven, Silvia is full of questions. Her mother never talks about her father or about the past. Her aunt has photographs and stories; her mother is like the librarian that just wants everyone to stop talking. She is consumed by her fears. We readers have to wonder which of them is more realistic. Should the aunt stop blabbing, or should Sil’s mother get a grip? Silvia clearly prefers her aunt’s approach, but then, Sil is just a kid.

There’s a considerable wait list to get into school, so in the meanwhile, Silvia is bored, and bored kids have a tendency to get into trouble. Silvia becomes obsessed with the reclusive artist that lives in the penthouse. Nobody talks to her, because nobody is supposed to bother her. The one obvious thing about this neighbor is that she leaves home at the same time each day with her three dogs.

Silvia becomes convinced that the woman is a sorcerer whose dogs transform into humans—her three sons—for a portion of each day. My initial reaction is the same as her mother’s: don’t be ridiculous, Sil. Leave that poor woman alone. But then it dawns on me that this is fiction, after all, and this is Obreht, so…could the woman have supernatural powers?

Silvia is assisted twice in her spying mission, first by a neighbor that goes by Lam, and that is willing to exchange a pass key to enter the artist’s home for mail that was sent to him after he moved out.  I wonder about this; an eleven year old is approached by an adult man for secret purposes. What could possibly go wrong?

Her other confederate is a girl her own age whose family moves into The Morningside.  How starved Silvia has been for a peer!  Yet this girl is even gutsier than Silvia, and she leads her into dangerous waters more than once.

That’s all I’m going to tell you, except that the story is fresh and original, and although I tend to be skeptical when it comes to this genre, there is never a moment when I find myself stepping back and saying, no way.

With a young protagonist, one might be tempted to say this is for young adults, and that’s possible; yet the vocabulary is advanced enough that the younger reader had better have extraordinary skills in reading and comprehension, not to mention stamina.

I recommend this novel to those that love the genre.

Pay Dirt, by Sara Paretsky*****

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Sara Paretsky is a badass author with a badass protagonist. Her hero, Vic Warshawski, is a rough and ready private eye, and though based in Chicago, she sometimes—as now—finds herself elsewhere when duty beckons. Author Paretsky is one of the three that pioneered the hardboiled female private eye subgenre; the first in this series, Indemnity Only, came out in 1982, over 40 years ago, and that is how long I have been reading them. And though I was lucky to receive a review copy, thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow, this is one of those rare books that I would have paid full price to read if that was the only way I could get it.

This book is for sale now.

This story finds Vic in bad shape, both mentally and physically. She has attempted to help a student of her boyfriend Peter’s, a trans youth whose father blew out the kid’s brains rather than accept their new identity. The brains stuck to Vic, and the experience sent her reeling emotionally. She’s been forgetting self-care, not eating or exercising. What she needs is rest and quiet.

But that’s not how it goes.

Her godchild Bernie persuades Vic to attend a basketball championship game in Kansas. A group of them will be going down there; it’s just what Vic needs, she says. Reluctantly, Vic agrees, but once they are there and the game is over, one of the parties disappears, and Vic is enlisted to find her. When Vic finds the missing basketball player, she inadvertently finds a dead body. The cops in Lawrence, Kansas as well as the FBI like her for the killing. It’s so convenient to have a mouthy, street smart outsider blunder in; hopefully, they can pin it all on her, and then life will go on as it has been. And so Vic must stay behind because she’s been told not to leave town, but also in order to clear her name.

Now, this is one of the elements that generally irritates me in most mysteries; the whole clearing-my-name trope is desperately overdone. There’s another trope that shows up later in the story, but I won’t share it here because it’s a spoiler. But for every rule, there is an exception, and in the case of both tropes, Paretsky breezes through, and I barely bat an eye; this is because the characters are so real to me, and the situation they’re in is so immediate, that I blow it off so I can find out what happens next.

And as is so often the case, Vic Warshawski finds herself up against the town’s wealthy power brokers, who have a vested interest in not having the real killer caught. As for Vic, she makes friends with a few people that have no wealth and no power, but the small ways they assist her make all the difference.

Once she solves the crime, persuades the local police and others that she is innocent and that the blame lies with the men in the suits, are they hauled off in shackles? Don’t hold your breath. As one of her new pals reflects, “That is justice in America, plain and simple, before you wrap it up in a pretty package of Constitutional rights that only the rich get to have.”

The thing that sets this particular book apart from the other very good mysteries I’ve read recently is the development of the protagonist. She’s vulnerable because of her earlier trauma; her boyfriend left the country on business, and he hasn’t been responding to her texts. She is miserable, and she’s isolated. But as the pressure builds, Warshawski delivers. The last quarter of this novel is impossible to put down, and even before that, I set aside my usual rotation of books, because I wanted to read this, and only this.

This novel is written in such a way that a first time reader can jump into the series, but chances are good that once you do, you’ll reach back for some or all of the others. Highly recommended to those that love gritty, rough and tumble detectives; feminists; and those that lean to the left.