Rating: 
Summary: Not so Good
Review: The plot of the book has been mentioned by others so won't be included here. I did not like this book for 2 reasons:1. The plots, a bit hard to believe and follow, are also developed way to slowly. The first half of the book seems to just repeating the same words of the characters, I suppose to be sure we understand Paul's situation, understand Rhea's methods and opposition, understand Lotty's fears and confusion. With all the repetition the plots don't move forward much. I will admit, though, that I read to end to see how it all came out. Even then, everything was not clearly resolved at least as far as Paul goes. 2. The characters. There was not one main character you could like, from the whiny and spoiled Calia to Lotty to VI Warshawski herself. None were comforting or comfortable, someone to fall back on the plot takes a nasty turn. None of the characters took control and said, "Slow down, let's bring some sense to all of this." Seems like Max should have been the one but he didn't. And I don't like heroes or heroines (V.I.) who constantly break the law with no remorse. She was guilty of tampering with evidence, witholding evidence, tampering with a crime scene, breaking and entering. Not exactly my ideal person. And like another reviewer mentioned, her constant complaining about being tried was a very tiring itself. Perhaps she needed better vitamins. This is the first Sara Paretsky book I have read and will probably be the last.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book intended for Regulars
Review: This was my first aproach to V.I. Varshawski, not mentioning the movie years ago. Total Recall is a long book in a genre that usually rounds mysteries on 300pp (Elizabeth George an exception). Paretsky won't settle for that and sets it up for us to think we're deep into very differents plots: an insurance fraud and a disturbed outcrying holocaust derived patient harassing her friends (Paul Radbuka). During the book I kept wondering what was wrong with V.I.'s way of treating people, everyone is, for a moment or two, against her, abusing her verbally, doubting her judgement, etc. even her friends and help (except maybe Mr. Contreras an odd character himself). It's like Paretsky likes to mount as much obstacles as possible for Vic to face.
The book has several interwoven chapters recovering the Lotty Herschel story that goes back to World War II, the Kindertransport, remorses and guilt. This chapters are great and probably the best in the book.
The thing I found a bit anoying comes from when Lotty feels, strangely treatened by Radbuka and behaves very irrationaly for hundreds of pages attacking and insulting V.I. Probably this isn't new for the V.I. frequent reader: Why does this woman stands that much abuse from a alleged friend? I assumed they were very close in other books, but Paretsky fails to convey that for the first time reader (something Sue Grafton always holds in mind). Vic says many times that she loves Lotty and so on but that didn't make it for me. Somehow Paretsky should have introduced the main characters as they show so their role, importance and oddities were understood.
If you never read a novel in this series you can find many open questions in the behavior of its characters. Its like if Paretsky is writing only for the regulars. Not withstanding this little shortcomming, the book is engrossing. You are going to read it top to bottom (of course not in one sitting). And once you go beyond the first 100 pages a bit slow paced but I guess needed to set up the plot, and the first corpse is found, you are caught in the book. I won't spoil the book writing about a few contrived points in the resolution, but be assured I plan to read more of this series. I couldn't say if its the best of them but it certainly is a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating tale involving the Holocaust and memories...
Review: This was one of Paretsky's better mysteries with her sleuth, V. I. Warshawski. The basic premise of the book involves recent events (90's) by children of parents killed in the Holocaust attempting to get their family's money out of Swiss banks, and evidently, cash in on life insurance sold to Jewish families throughout Europe, who were frighten by the obvious anti-Semitic of Hitler and his attempts to conquer Europe. Also involved is the issue in this country of slave reparations...both of these topics entertwine with each other throughout the whole mystery. .... As other reviewers have stated, the first hundred pages or so of setting up the plot is slightly onerous, or I would have given the book a five. Once you get past that the book reads extremely quickly. This is one book in which Warshawski ends up trying to help her mentor and friend, Lotty, who was one of the children sent to England prior to WWII to save their lives (by their families and parents). How ironic that these children often felt abandoned, when their parents were trying to do their best to save them. Yet, children do not understand the nature of the adult world, and so they create explanations that can make total sense for them. In the midst of all this tragedy, the efforts of insurance companies to avoid paying out what they owed to these families, and the murder that tied this all together...is another side plot having to do with planted memories and whether recalled memories under psychotherapy are real or not. ... The picture drawn of this pitiable man searching for an anchor in the form of a family after spending a lifetime of abuse under the hands of a ruthless man (who also sold life insurance policies to the Jews in Europe, and African-Americans in the U.S.) is very poignant. You understand the exasperation of V. I. with this guy who was barging his way into Lotty's extended family, but also you feel for him. One of the problems with the book lay in the fact that some of the loose ends not 'solved' to my satisfaction was with this particular person. I wish Paretsky had told us more about the reality of this man's life, as well as solving the murder and Lotty's problems from the Holocaust. Otherwise, an extremely good read! Karen Sadler
Rating: 
Summary: Character Development overshadows Plot
Review: Total Recall is a fine VI Warshawski novel, one of Sara's best. Both VI and Sara have evolved and matured over time. Sara has turned a corner by adding more dimension to VI, Lotty and Max. The development of the characters was more significant in this novel than the Byzantine plotting Ms. Paretsky is known for. A few tidbits: It's good to see VI finally got a cell phone. Except she has to remember to charge it once and awhile. I was getting concerned in the previous books that VI had the morals of an alley cat. I'm glad to see her settling down with a guy like Morrell, except I'm nervous about his trip to Afghanistan turns out. VI avoided getting beaten up every fifty pages. Lotty's bizarre behavior in this novel is explainable, if you read it through to the end. She becomes more understandable and human, but still remains the same spunky Lotty. The plot was well entwined, but it was not as impenetrable as some prior VI tales. All in all a good read.
Rating:
Summary: don't bother
Review: Very disappointing. I had promised myself a relaxed evening and bought the book, but there was nothing at all to hold my interest. The writing is confusing, the characters hard to keep apart, and the plot is the only mysterious part, meaning that I never really got interested before I just gave up.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Recall
Review: When she agrees to help lathe operator Isaiah Sommers press his claim for his recently deceased uncle's piddling $10,000 policy with Ajax Insurance, V.I. Warshawski has no idea that the case will blow up in her face-first with her former lover Ralph Devereux's insistence that Ajax paid out the policy ten years ago when they got proof that Aaron Sommers had died, then with the stunning news that muckraking Alderman Louis Durham has publicly tarred her as an Ajax toady determined to bilk the Sommers family out of their rightful due. But an unsought case is even uglier. A Holocaust survivor named Paul Radbuka, his repressed memories of his unspeakable past restored by hypnotherapist Rhea Wiell, has convinced himself that he's related to Vic's old friend Dr. Lotty Herschel. Now he's stalking Lotty and her intimates, Max Loewenthal and Carl Tisov, trying to force them to acknowledge him. As Lotty's nerves fray, a trail of corpses begins to form behind the two cases-the owner of the independent firm that sold the Aaron Sommers policy, the Ajax clerk in charge of the Sommers file-and Radbuka himself is shot. Just how, Vic wonders, are her two investigations related-and what's the deeper connection between the issues of Holocaust reparations and reparations for African-American slavery? Paretsky loves to bite off more than she can chew, and her tenth novel (after Hard Time, 1999, etc.) is her most fiercely ambitious to date. No wonder the heroically mounting complications are never quite brought under control: her furious energy keeps the final pages still churning.
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