Rating: 
Summary: Very good, albeit slightly polemical, Warshawski
Review: Sara Paretsky is an excellent writer and this latest in the V.I. Warshawski series is a worthy contribution. It has to be looked at on two levels, however, as many of the previous reviewers have done. Along with a number of other popular writers Paretsky has a strong philosophical persuasion and uses her bully pulpit to express it. Whereas Clancy, Cussler, Marcinko and several others are conservative cheerleaders, V.I.'s creator is unabashedly liberal, and in Blacklist she takes on the Ashcroft Justice Deparment and the Patriot Act with gusto, relating it back to the days of the HUAC blacklist of the 50's.This book is carefully plotted, bouncing back and forth between a current murder and events of 50 years previously. The characters are well defined and the milieu rich, although there are perhaps a few too many characters and one begins to lose track after a while. However, the book is well-paced, and the mystery satisfyingly complex, so that most Paretsky fans will enjoy it provided that their personal political beliefs don't get in the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Gotta Get Beyond the Cold
Review: Sara Paretsky's skill as a writer surfaces through her ability to create strong empathy between reader and character. This is no more evident than by the events of Chapter 4. Our favorite character, V.I. Warshawski, catches cold pulling a dead man out of a pound. As she drags fanny, so does the reader. But when our investigator returns to form, the intensity of the plot follows suit, eventually clipping along at a pace that kept this reader turning pages well into the wee hours of the morning. By the end of the story, no character is left dangling. The reader knows the who, what, and why. However, nagging thoughts persist about how our lives fit in a country fraught by paranoia.
As V.I. goes about her business of investigating, she is - indeed - a mellower private eye, using clever interrogation skills, rather than "lip," to drag answers from the unsuspecting instead of alienating them. I like this deeper Warshawski. On the other hand, V.I. remains true to form by going where her case leads her, deliberately shoving aside warnings to "back off" despite threat to body and business.
The author uses "the case" to explore the darker sides of Homeland Security and the power of the ultra-wealthy. V.I., herself, becomes the target of over-jealous protectors of the homeland, and the reader is reminded of just how easy it is for very real civil liberties to be trampled. Readers are also exposed to the inworkings of high-society, and how *different* they think and operate from the rest of society.
I applaud this book. It takes the reader places that few would imagine when seeking to be entertained by the familiar antics of our beloved V.I. Warshawski. "Blacklist" not only entertains, but makes the reader look at our country in the wake of 9/11.
Rating: 
Summary: preachy
Review: That's it - preachy. I don't read mysteries to get my politics - I read political and historical books for that - this book was just terrible. I wish I could return this book and I hope others just do not order it. Buy another book for a good mystery and then look for whatever you like in Pol/Sc/Hist.
Rating:
Summary: 12th installment, and I¿m not tired of this broad
Review: The first Paretsky book I read, I knew I was going to have to read all of them. And I have, and I'm still not tired of this V. I. Warshawski broad, Chicago private eye.
Blacklist deals with the long-term effects of discrimination and guilt. A friend of Vic's (V. I.) asks her to investigate possible trespassing in the family mansion where she grew up. Here's a good scene: on her first foray into the property in years, she stumbles into a cruddy pond and comes up holding hands with some dead guy. Turns out he's a black journalist writing about stuff from the 30s. Things get deeper and murkier when the man's sister asks Warshawski to investigate the murder.
I get the feeling that Paretski has done some fantastic research in the writing of this book, as the content spans cultures, generations, and politics over 70 yrs as she proves that prejudice is alive and well in our world.
No big surprise there, but she does it so very, very well.
Rating:
Summary: BLACKLIST is Sara Paretsky¿s best tale in several years
Review: The impact of 9/11 even in the heartland continues to have impact on residents. While her lover writer is in the Afghanistan or is that the Ubekistan area, private investigator V.I. Warshawski agrees to accept a strange case, at least from this particular client, longtime corporate customer Darraugh Graham. His ninety-year-old mother insists that she has seen lights looking out from her room in a nursing home from inside the nearby abandoned Larchmont Hall. V.I. goes to the deserted building anticipating running into either homeless or teens, but instead finds the corpse of T-Square magazine reporter, Marc Whitby. Apparently, he was investigating 1950s dancer Kylie Ballantine, a victim of Olin Taverner's witch-hunt. The county declares Marc killed himself, but his wife Harriet hires her because she wonders if government officials murdered him. V.I. accepts the case though the FBI and local law enforcement want her to step back because they are investigating a case involving a possible terrorist that might have a bearing
on the reporter's death. BLACKLIST is Sara Paretsky's best tale in several years as the author effortlessly brings out the caring side of her sleuth without diminishing the strength of V. I. All that is placed inside a political thriller wrapped around a fast-paced who-done-it. This well written exquisitely exciting hooks the reader while also providing a warning message that the witch hunts of Salem and McCarthy are not isolated aberrations. They are a consistent part of history (same sh*t just after WW I) especially when people allow the flag and "security" to warp freedoms. After a dozen or so books, Warshawsky hopefully has more adventures like this one that is if she can avoid vanishing in front of a military tribunal. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Better luck next time
Review: The writing quality itself is Paretsky's usual good stuff; however, I'm subtracting two stars: one because the politics got in the way of the story and one for the confusing cast of characters. Available blurbs cover the plot structure fairly comprehensively, but I'll try not to give away any "secrets".
By the time the Egyptian kid enters the story directly, fairly far along in the book, I've forgotten exactly what he had "done" to deserve such attention from the Feds - aside from attending a suspect mosque on a regular basis. That aspect of the plot was handled in such an exaggerated manner that I had trouble suspending disbelief. The author might rebut that such a scenario "might be possible" under this draconian law. I'm not willing to agree.
Frankly I'm surprised Paretsky was able to get away with so many supporting characters speaking with, basically, two voices among them: "privileged Caucasian person" and "well educated African-American". The members of each group were, for the most part, indistinguishable from each other after a while.
Further confusing the reader in this long novel, the shadows of several deceased individuals are present. A scorecard was sorely needed; I checked to see if I'd missed a family tree chart at the beginning that might have helped me with this story.
In summary: this would have worked better as two (briefer!) stories - one on the Patriot Act and one on buried secrets from the past. As others have said, the link between the 50's and today doesn't work well enough to hold the two plots together.
Rating:
Summary: Best Story Yet
Review: These days most mysteries barely break 300 pages with large type and plenty of border spacing. This 415 page newest of VI's life and times is extremely well written and compels me on many levels to stay up way past bedtime reading just one more chapter. I am very much enjoying finding out about the Federal Negro Theatre Project and will look into that aspect of Black history more.
Rather than a murder in every chapter as seems the genre rule these days, we are kept interested by detail and characters that are complex and a multi-layered plot. I most especially enjoy VI's comebacks to authority figures and her no nonsense approach to the police. Highly rec'd this book.
Rating:
Summary: Secrets, Secrets, Secrets!
Review: This book is full of secrets and betrayals, and VI gets caught up in the middle of a conspiracy that actuallly began 50 years previously. It's been a couple of years since we've heard from V.I., and things have happened in her world - the World Trade Centre, threats of terrorism and Homeland Security, and the love of her life - Morrell has been over in Afghanistan doing wartime reporting. Although Vic misses him terribly, she's trying hard not to look like a clinging female, and continues to pursue her own career in Chicago. She is still chasing bad guys and risking her life trying to uphold law and order. She is asked by one of her more well-heeled clients to determine who has been using his family anscestral home. Although the mansion is supposedly empty, this client's elderly mother still sees lights on inside the building late at night. Looks fairly straightforward until V.I. accidentally falls into the old ornamental pool on the grounds and discovers a dead man. Then she is whirled into a maelsrtom of intrigue, secrets, Communist plots and racism that almost causes her to lose her own life. Paretsky writes a great yarn, and her characters are the most three-dimensional you'll see in this genre. She is without peer in the mystery writing field! Awesome book!
Rating:
Summary: Riveting and relevant
Review: This is a book you will be thinking about long after you turn the last page. The plotline was riveting, and the way current events are woven into the unfolding mystery is both interesting and disturbing. I can't wait to read Paretsky's next book.
Rating:
Summary: Good!
Review: This is my first VI Warshawski mystery and represents a kind of departure from my usual reading. A tough, nosey, but kind-hearted heroine, realistic settings, rich historical detail and a bittersweet ending all make for interesting and absorbing reading.
I had my doubts at first, but the book's premise and strong writing won me over. Not as much action as I like to see, but still a good read. However, I felt the whole set-up for the killer was implausible, but I can not give that away here. However, I can say that I liked the aspect of the killer quite possibly weaseling out from under the consequences of the crime, using power, priviledge and the hysteria of the moment to maximum advantage.
The level of realism in the book took me by surprise, and the author's left-leaning politics were naked throughout the text. However, I have to agree with Paretsky, who used the novel as an excuse to riff on the sorry state of the Bill of Rights these days. Many weighty themes were skillfully handled, such as McCarthyism and the Red Scare (a horrible blight on US history), the ongoing discrimination against people of African-American descent, and the rabid climate of paranoia and fear that has enveloped America in the wake of the tragic events of 2001.
My only gripe with the author is the lack of action (characters only get shot once or twice), and I am afraid my (rabid) devotion to Robert B. Parker's Hawk (and that Spenser guy, I guess he's OK, seeing as he is Hawk's sidekick and all!) is a bit too apparent here. Paretsky writes more in a procedural kind of vane, using background and detail more than pulse-pounding action. Parker, in contrast, writes more hard-boiled, tough-guy, gun-slinging action with an economy of words. Still, I have to make a note to check out a few more of VI's earlier romps, as she makes for absolutely fun reading. Great work, Ms. Paretsky!
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