The latest novel in Paretsky's VI Warshawsky private detective series in which the P.I. travels to Kansas when her god-daughter asks for help with a missing persons case.
The plotting and pacing are first-rate. The storyline, given today’s political climate, could hardly be more apropos. Fallout is hard to put down, and one of Paretsky’s best.
Sara Paretsky defies the old notion that regional detectives don’t travel well outside their home turf ... This is the kind of social consciousness we’ve come to expect from Paretsky, a committed political activist whose conscience informs everything she writes. She’s strong, she’s fierce, and she carries that chip on her shoulder with real pride.
Paretsky's tale of a big-city private investigator who turns a small town inside out put me in mind of Dashiell Hammett's classic Red Harvest. But here's a key difference: Hammett's Continental Op deliberately sets out to tear the burg apart. Warshawski's destabilizing magic is just the byproduct of the convoluted thread she keeps yanking — and of her passion for the underdog ... In contrast to loner private eyes of yore, Warshawski is a thoroughly related person who relies on a network of friends and helpers, and who finds time to care for her animal while saving the world. She balances old-fashioned door-knocking gumshoeing with DNA swabs and paid databases. She's also a person who listens to the voices of the elderly, the mentally ill and the often ignored. There's no sign that she'll run out of work any time soon.
