Yes, I
like Studs Terkel. And yes, I like Nelson Algren. I even like Carl Sandburg. But
the Chicago author I really think is great is Sara Paretsky.
This past
weekend I picked up Paretsky’s Shell Game, a book in her V.I. Warshawski series.
I read it in two sittings; it is highly unusual for me to read that fast. Critics
have said her work is formula writing – while the plot changes, it is always
the same cast of characters (sort of like Sherlock Holmes). While exaggerated, I can understand how critics might
say so – but what a formula, and what a cast of characters!
In
Shell Game, Vic, a private detective, receives a panicky message from her dear
friend Dr. Lotty Herschel whose nephew Felix is being compelled by police to a
crime scene in a far south suburban Forest Preserve to identify a dead body. Police
could not find any ID on the body, though they found Felix’s phone number in
his pocket. Felix denies knowing, or even know of, the dead guy. The Cook
County Police loosely patrol the Forest Preserves are wanting to solve the
murder quickly to make the Sheriff look good. They immediately make Felix the prime
suspect, though they have absolutely no evidence to support that.
Felix
is an engineering student at the renowned Illinois Institute of Technology, IIT,
in Chicago. Felix is one of the many foreign students at IIT. Since he is
Canadian, the case will instantly spark the interest of Immigration Control
Enforcement (ICE). [Important to note, this book was published in 2018 during the
Felon’s first term as President yet remains relevant to the Felon’s current
term of office.]
And as is expected in all of Paretsky’s books, this will get very convoluted, very quickly. By book’s end, we’ll have subplots involving Vic’s nieces, her ex-husband, Syrian antiquities, the Syrian civil war, sex trafficking, financial fraud, Russian thugs and Russian oligarchs.
Fallout (2017) by Sara Paretsky
What I
like best about Paretsky is her detailed knowledge of Chicago neighborhoods. Shell
Game zeroes in on the insular neighborhood and campus of IIT, the Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago campus, and the West Rogers Park
neighborhood centered on Devon Avenue now known colloquially as “Little Bombay”
because its residents are largely Indian or Pakistani immigrants.
Recommendation: Yes, it’s great. And if you are
confused about the financial grifts we read about in the news these days, it offers examples that are easy to understand – call it: Cryptocurrency & Bitcoins
101.
