Ghost Country

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: after waiting so long to read another book by Ms. Paretsky (not necessarily another V.I.), i was very disappointed. i didn't care about the characters (they were all selfish, mean, etc.) and the story just seemed to ramble. the basis for the story was good but what did we learn? 'Ghost Country' reminds me of Martha Grimes' first foray without Inspector Jury/Melrose Plant ('End of the Pier') ... frightening, depressing book. but the second one in that series was great. maybe further adventures of Mara, Hector, Harriet, etc. will be more palatable.

Rating:
Summary: A truly awful book.
Review: I had no idea what to expect from this book when I started it, only knowing that it wasn't a V.I. story. I was doubtful at first but as I read on I became more and more enchanted. It is not a plumbing of the psychological depths of various realistic characters, but clearly it was not meant to be. Instead it is a kind of morality play for our time, done so skillfully that the story grips the reader and won't let go. Some of the characters are almost caricatures, rather like people in a very old allegory, and the story itself is full of wonderful allusions and layers of meaning--for example, the doctor's name, and that of the catalyst character, Starr. In the end I went away feeling very satisfied and somehow like I had added another layer to my own character. It's like reading a combination of the ancient "Descent of Inanna" and a modern thriller.

Rating:
Summary: Missed the Mark
Review: I have an enormous amount of respect for this author and it was mainly that which made me persevere through to the end of this book rather than anything inherently compelling about the story itself.

It seems clear what the author was trying to do here but she missed the mark somewhat. The territory is not dissimilar to that occupied by her other major character, VI Warshawski - both geographically and socially. However, here characters were two dimensional and completely unappealing - there was no-one I really cared enough about to make the journey to the end of the book really worthwhile. Also, while we know that a lot of men behave horribly toward women, there is quite some heavy-handedness with this issue in this book whereas this author has handled this same topic more subtley and effectively in the VI books.

Nevertheless, this author is greatly talented and this showed through in this book. And thanks, too, for the little salute to VI fans before and during the text.

Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to enjoy it!
Review: I love Sara Paretsky's writing but this one has me stumped. Her characters, usually pretty well developed, are so one-dimensional that I didn't feel sympathy for any of them and that is the "kiss of death" for me as a reader. I want to cheer for someone or at least feel interested in their fate. With these folks I would have been unmoved if they'd all been chucked over a cliff. Plus there were more than a few that I wanted to slap around and and say, "grow up!" So, perhaps I do not understand what Paretsky was trying to accomplish, but for me the book was tedious and unsatisfying.

Rating:
Summary: Embarrassingly bad
Review: I picked up GHOST COUNTRY at the library when I was in a mood for a quick, non-threatening read. That is not what I found. Instead of V.I Warshawski's take charge and sort out the problem and tie up all the loose ends fun read, GHOST COUNTRY was a book that would cause me to think and question. It was a time I didn't want to think about the problems and my role in their cause and cure. But, I know Gail Russel and her work at Sarah's Circle and was intrigued, so when the time was right I went back to find out what Ms. Paretsky had to say. I rembered TUNNEL VISION and her concern with the homeless. But GHOST COUNTRY is about much more than a look at people without housing, it is a look at individuals and how they come to be homeless how the parts of society, which I am part of, interact with the homless.

The book plot is a compilcated mix of personalities, events and social institutions and their effects on each other.

I will recommed it to my book group because Ms. Paratsky has written a book that requires the reader to think and question. The questions are not easy and the answers even harder. But my book group is an interesting mix of intelligent thinking women who stretch each other to move out of our comfortable thinking ruts.

I hope that Ms. Paratsky continues to write about V.I., but that GHOST COUNTRY is followed by books that will stay in my mind and cause me to question what I believe and how I react toward others and the part I play in all I do.

It is not a "pleasant" story. She is not Clyde Edgerton in WALKING ACROSS EGYPT, asking what is the role of the Church, what do young people need to be sucessful adults, what gives adults a state of grace. Instead Ms. Paretsky colors her story with some disturbing images, but she is not without hope and redemption.

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Country
Review: I was very disappointed with this book. I love the V.I. books and was ready to take on a new Paretsky book, but now I realize that it's best to stick with the familiar mysteries. This book promised to be challenging and for lack of a better adjective wonderful. I found that this book should be listed under horror and poorly written at that. Sara Paretsky should stick with what she is best at and that is the V.I. Mysteries.

Rating:
Summary: A truly unusual offering from Ms. Paretsky. Thank You!
Review: It took me months to finally start reading this book. I wasn't sure I really wanted to read something "different" from Ms. Paretsky's regular books. I found this book very difficult to get into at first, but I kept reading and I am so glad I did. The characters are very well defined and each is very different. I was pleased to find that none of the characters was all bad or all good. The heroes had flaws!! When I finished the book I sat still and quiet for about 20 minutes and just thought. What makes seemingly good and normal people behave in such ways? How would our society handle such a situation? Would we persecute Christ if he walked on our earth now? Would He be with the homeless and the mentally ill? Of course He would and that made this book all the more interesting and thought provoking. If someone picks up this book expecting Ms. Paretsky's normal smart mouth P.I. type of character they will be very disappointed. If however they pick it up with an open mind and want to read a very well written and thought provoking book they will be as pleased as I was. Thank you Sara Paretsky for a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Country
Review: Sara Peretsky steps out of the mystery genre with an allegorical novel that tackles issues of money, sex, gender, power, religion, and insanity. It's an admirable effort that she doesn't quite pull off. The book brings together a diverse group of characters: a group of homeless women, an alcoholic diva, the well-heeled household of a famous neurosurgeon, an overwhelmed psychiatric resident, and a mysterious "goddess" figure. The characters never quite engage us, never get that spark of life that pulls us in for the ride. In particular, we never seem to get a good, head-on look at the pivotal character of the book, the messianic Starr. All of the characters keep telling us how compelling she is; once she shows up, halfway through the book, everybody in the book seems obsessed by her. But we have to take their word for it: she's vague, almost a background character, and there's nothing about her as she's written that reaches out and takes hold of us. This book is both commentary and satire, but it lacks the outrageousness and pure humor necessary to put across its point. I can see what Peretsky was trying to do, and at some points she gets close to hitting her target, but in general it's not a tight enough effort.

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Country
Review: This is a very well-written urban fantasy. (It's not remotely horror, by the way).

It's not a mystery. It's about a Goddess returning into urban American life, and the chaos that ensues.

As a reader familiar with SFF, I found this story original, well-written, well-characterized and engaging. It draws the reader in and offers both intellectual and emotional interest.

Paretsky fans who are able to step beyond the familiar mystery milieu, and who aren't afraid of a little sensuality, have a treat to read here--and I don't hesitate to recommend the book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Country
Review: When you think of Sara Paretsky, you can't help but think of V.I. Warshawski in the very same thought. Most people who picked up this book probably assumed it was a new adventure for V.I.; after all, that's what Sara Paretsky writes. Well, I'm sure Sara Paretsky is a multi-dimensional person herself, and as such is allowed to write what she likes - if we're disappointed that V.I. is not a character in this book, that's our problem, not hers. There really was no room for V.I. in this story, anyway. But that didn't stop me having a problem.

Still set in Chicago, Paretsky weaves an urban fable around the most unlikely heroines; the homeless, "mad" and dispossessed. We all know about homeless people, but do we have any idea how they get that way? How can an unquenchable craving for alcohol bring a world famous operatic diva onto the streets with her hardly noticing? It seems incredible to me, but I have never experienced that thirst. Why do the withheld histories of her mother and grandmother cause a young woman to construct alternative lives for them and go looking for them? I don't know - I'm sure we don't have such secrets in my family. How can someone see rusty water leaking from a crack in a wall, and see the blood of the Virgin Mary? I don't know - I don't have that sort of faith.

Then there are those who help. What is help? Is the shelter provided by Hagar House really help, with all the miles of strings attached in the name of some sort of self-serving Christianity. Does the hospital really provide help, with the dispensation of drugs and 15 minute psychiatric sessions?

The supposedly normal people are also a mass of confliction. The golden girl, freezing her emotions down deep while striving relentlessly for the approval of a domineering grandfather. The domineering grandfather, treated as a god by the hospital and by a manipulative housekeeper. The idealistic, young psychiatrist, still naïve enough to put concern for patients ahead of concern for the hospital. The hellfire and brimstone preaching lay brother, with his abused, repressed and cowered daughter, and bully of a son. The large hotel, owners of the wall worshipped by the homeless women and the lengths they are prepared to go to get rid of them.

But then the story takes a fantasy turn, and unfortunately gets lost. A mysteriously erotic, unintelligible woman named Starr enters, and manages to heal everyone's afflictions and punish the manipulators. With her Medusa-like hairstyle, is she a reincarnated Sumarian goddess, or a female Christ? Well, what she is, is a cop-out. I was appalled to find this story that had provoked my thoughts and held me spell-bound for many pages, suddenly turned into a silly little fantasy. The introduction of this character was completely unnecessary - a writer of Paretsky's proven skill resorting to such artifice to resolve a skilfully constructed set-up is extremely disappointing.

Still, I found quite a bit of food for thought in this book. How precariously many of us totter on the precipice, how tiny the nudge to send us spinning out of control. What then?