Rating: 
Summary: Not up to her usual standard.........
Review: Unless one has read Ms. Paretsky's previous novels in this series, one would come away from this book with the sense that Lotty is a raving nutcase who is very hard to care about, despite the interspersed chapters about her early life. I also found it difficult to get interested in all the insurance brouhaha, which at times was confusing. Ms. Paretsky writes well, and V.I. is great, but I felt that this time around the story was just not all that riveting.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Recall
Review: This is the first Paretsky novel that I have read. It emeshes you with the characters immediately, is well paced and keeps the reader interested to the end. Well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Washawski confusion
Review: I've looked forward to hearing more about Lotty Herschel. She is an enigma with a past, but is more loving and giving than any that Vic has met since the death of her mother. The close bond between Lotty and Vic has been a special thread through all of her books. So, when the "story of Lotty" was coming out, I was all eager to read the secret history.
I now have slogged through over half the book, primarily because of the promise of the idea it dangled in front of me. However, many places do not make any sense and VI is constantly banging into one person, then careening to another "pin ball game" is how the character refers to it. Lotty just shut up for this first half of the book. No loving kindness, just hautiness. It must be her evil twin. And the black subplot goes around and around, sort of like the drain in "Psycho". I am very disappointed with the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Great Paretsky book
Review: This book was very difficult to follow at times. There was a lot of information to digest. One thing I found quite weird was that I was reading of VI's boyfriend (Morrell) going off to the land of the Thaliban just as the WTC attack and our whole mess with now with the Thaliban. I got chills. On the whole, I enjoyed it quite a bit and would recommend it to all. I will continue to remain a Sara Paretsky fan.
Rating:
Summary: A V.I. NOVEL BUT LOTTY'S BOOK
Review: As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I have been enjoying Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels for years. I am glad she has resumed writing them, especially TOTAL RECALL. In many ways, TOTAL RECALL is Lotty Herschel's book. Lotty is V.I.'s friend and mentor. Lotty is the closest thing to a mother V.I. has. In several chapters, Lotty takes central stage and returns us to those horrible days of Holocaust. In time present, a man named Paul Radbuka has surfaced making startling claims regarding his conection to Lotty and her companion, Max. V.I. begins to investigate this man and his claims at the same time she is involved with an insurance investigation involving a black man named Aaron Sommers. As the story progresses, the reader learns much about Lotty, her past, and the horrors of Nazism. Ms. Paretsky also links Holocaust reparations to the issue of reparations for slavery. TOTAL RECALL is an excellent novel addressing some most serious themes. Excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: "Total Recall" is truly forgettable
Review: In Sara Paretsky's 2001 V.I. Warshawski novel, the private investigator's boyfriend tells her that she bounces all over Chicago like a deranged ping pong ball.
Listen up Sara. You're trying to tell yourself something.
In "Total Recall" Warshawski spends far too much time in the car. In fact, she seems always to be in the car. And it's not that interesting a drive.
When not scooping the Loop, Paretsky takes the reader down a tortured and twisted Nazi Germany survivor side plot that isn't very diverting and comes into 21st Century America in a very confusing fashion. But through it we learn more about V.I's physician friend Lottie.
Still, learning about Lottie at this late date is too high a price to pay when she becomes the only character in the decades-old series with any depth.
And if Sara Paretsky continues to introduce parallel plots, she'd do well to make sure that she gives V.I. as much of a life as she gives history a voice.
Rating: 
Summary: A muddled read
Review: I plowed through this latest VI Warshawski book. It was hard concentrating on the story itself when I kept trying to figure out how Paretsky tied all the threads together in the first place. Lotty is brusque as usual, but this time she is also just plain miserable. Carl is miserable, Don is miserable, Calia is miserable - in fact everyone in this latest disaster is miserable. The only goodness comes from VI and Morrell, but it's not a "good" goodness. VI has changed. No more fighting, fuming, or chasing. The down-on-her-luck, tough as hell VI seems to have disappeared and has been replaced with this gentle soul who has found true love. BLAH! Couple this with the fact that we're treated to Paretsky's (and I guess VI's) political views on the Holocaust, slave reparations, and even the Taliban. I liked VI so much more before I found out she was a liberal!
Rating:
Summary: Where Is the Mystery?
Review: I found this latest entry in the V.I. Warshawski series oddly compelling. I really shouldn't have liked this book. This series has never really made it onto my must-read list -- maybe its V.I.'s character? Even the Chicago milieu isn't very interesting.In Total Recal, the "myster(ies)" werent't very mysterious (there were several in this convoluted plot) and the solutions relied on a variety of coincidences. The plot was quite unbelievable. What kept me reading was the Lotty subtext. Again, there was no real mystery (A woman takes a leave of absense due to "illness" and disappears, never to speak to her lover again? -- hmmm, I wonder what that means?). What kept me reading was to see 1) if I was right about what was going on -- I was; and 2) Lotty's story.
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