New V.I. Warshawski Sleuthing from Sara Paretsky, OVERBOARD

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort: Max comments, ‘If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.’”

No good deed goes unpunished. Detective V.I. (Vic, or Victoria) Warshawski may have only let her dogs out for a short run, but they take off by the waterfront and find a half-dead young woman lying among the rocks. Of course Vic calls for emergency services, and by the time the fragile teen is getting help at the hospital, the private investigator has got trouble with the police, the hospital, and, most importantly, someone from the Chicago underworld who thinks the immigrant teen was carrying a vital small item and must have slipped it to V.I. during the rescue. Not so—but is anyone going to believe Vic, or is her life going to be repeatedly in jeopardy at every move she makes?

Of course, her life is never simple enough to just have one crisis underway: She’s also trying to provide protection for some aging Jewish friends whose synagogue is under attack. Oddly, there’s a big-money real estate deal offered for the old building. Is the vandalism connected, as a form of pressure? As she gradually begins to also see parallels between the two ongoing crises, Vic also suspects someone on the police force is involved with the mob and its money.

That’s enough to concern her friends, especially after one particular officer with a reputation for torture and menace targets Vic maliciously, with both language and force.

Her trusted advisor Lotty puts it bluntly: “It’s shocking, and deplorable, that you and this young man were molested,” Lotty said. “But, Victoria, please be realistic. If the police really are covering up a major crime, you can get yourself seriously wounded physically, on top of the degradation of a strip search.” When Lotty asks Vic to back off, for the sake of the friends who love her, it seems important to do so.

Yet other forces are in action: The rescued teen vanishes from the hospital; when Vic tracks down the youth’s Hungarian grandmother, she finds collusion between a nursing home and the black-ops police officers. More assaults on the synagogue distress Vic’s elderly friends to almost the breaking point. She clearly can’t help being pulled back into this dangerous mess, can she?

One of the pleasures of reading Sara Paretsky’s Warshawski novels is that despite the threats and pressure, there’s relatively little gore spread around, so the focus can stay on the perpetrators and their motives. Even the bent police pressure on Vic amounts to little more than battering her (although, granted, much worse gets threatened). Series readers will recognize the steady build-up of Vic’s insistence on justice at any cost, a reliable characteristic of these books. New to V.I. Warshawski? Relax and enjoy the well-plotted story and don’t worry about earlier titles—Parestsky doesn’t embed anything that calls for reading the other books, and her highly professional narrative makes it easy to catch Warshawski’s motivations and maneuvers. The quirks of the Chicago waterfront add to the book’s drama, and to the factors stacked up against this lone detective. But don’t take the “lone” notion too seriously: Vic’s willingness to be a friend, with all her heart, gains an equal return, and she’s well supported.

One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort, despite its risks and her often wounded body: Max comments, “If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.”

For Vic, that’s not going to be a problem.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Corruption in the Oil Industry and Land Deals Speeds Paul E. Hardisty's Thrillers to the Top

Things keep changing in the global publishing arena. Orenda Books is a relatively new British publisher, carried in the US by Trafalgar Square Publishing at the Independent Publishers Group. When a copy of Paul E. Hardisty's second thriller, THE EVOLUTION OF FEAR, came my way via IPG, the distributor noted that Hardisty's first novel, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, climbed onto the Crime Writers Association (CWA) charts right away: short-listed for the 2015 John Creasey "New Blood" dagger.

So of course, I picked up the first book, first.

Here's the situation as The Abrupt Physics of Dying opens: Claymore Straker's been working as an oil company engineer for a company of questionable ethics, in Yemen. His job is to conduct surveys of oil locations, present and future, and collect the test results for the company, while at the same time assuring the local people that the company only means to bring them good things: money, schools, a hospital even. He's been lying for his clients for so long that it doesn't bother him much.

But he has a vulnerability: He cares about his local driver and close friend Abdulkader. When a rebel leader named Al Shams captures Clay and Abdulkader, there's only one deal on the table: Clay must visit more of the sites being poisoned, take samples that prove it's from the oil operations, and get that information to the company leadership with a message from Al Shams: "All that is within this land is a gift from God to those who have lived here since before the prophet." Abdulkader's life depends on Clay completing this mission by a deadline that Al Shams sets:

"My people are dying. Your oil is killing them. What you must ask yourself, Mister Claymore, is if you care. ... I am giving you an opportunity, my friend, to find what you have lost."

But the oil company's corrupt -- well, Clay knew that, in a way -- and although its environmental effects are actually far worse than Clay realized, his efforts to make the leadership listen fall on deaf ears. Receiving Abdulkadar's severed hand in a package confirms that the deadline was intended, real, and fierce.

But that doesn't stop Clay's awakened conscience from driving him to fight for the Yemeni people, now that he's reawakened to caring about the land and the individuals. In The Abrupt Physics of Dying, his math and science skills are of little avail when he finds he's on the wrong side of both Yemen's secret service and the CIA.

The book's bloody and fearsome ending reshapes Clay Straker into an international race to escape being framed, in THE EVOLUTION OF FEAR. There's a woman he's begun to care about also, across barriers of ethnicity, religion, and motives. This time, it's not just the CIA on his tail: The Russian mafia, Greek Cypriots, and Turkish land developers have surrounded the woman in her role as a powerful journalist, and once again, Clay's struggling to free someone he cares about from a hostage situation. Even if he succeeds, will she accept him as lover and friend -- or push him away, symbol of the oppressive money forces operating around her. What must he give up, to maintain Rania's safety and his own sense of integrity? He struggles to understand:

"Justice isn't an event, she'd said. It isn't something you do once. There is no end to it. Forgiveness, you earn."

I have complete confidence that Paul E. Hardisty -- whose bio is outrageously interesting and laced with risk -- will carry this series forward. Consider me eagerly waiting for the next Clay Straker adventure, with its suspense and moral conflicts, as well as highly memorable characters and situations. Good stuff.

Yes, these deserve reading in sequence. Both are available via the usual sources, thanks to Trafalgar's adept US distribution.

Texas Mystery, STILLWATER, from Melissa Lenhardt

There's a sure touch to the abundant dialogue carrying STILLWATER, unusual in an author's first book. But Texas writer Melissa Lenhardt is already writing across genres, with mystery, historical fiction, and women's fiction, and before this book went to print, it became a finalist for the 2014 Whidbey Writers' MFA Alumni Emerging Writers Contest. Which is a long way of saying: Other writers already think Lenhardt's writing is darned good.

So do I. In fact, I was tempted to say, "Move over, Craig Johnson" -- but Texas isn't Wyoming, and Jack McBride, new police chief for Stillwater, Texas, isn't Walt Longmire. He doesn't have that permanent wound on the verge of despair. Instead, arriving in town prepared to treat his previous work with the FBI as career step, he's capable, sober, and open to an amazing romance that starts as soon as he meets the town's newest business owner: Ellie Martin, proprietor of a brand-new bookstore. Too bad the two of them have so little time to bond in other ways -- Jack's teenaged son isn't ready for his father to date (after all, Jack's still technically married), plus a combination of a new crime and and old one put Jack into overtime right away. Can the hot-shot profiler bite into what's gone wrong, or is he too far out of his home environment?

In addition, Jack has a bigger problem: his predecessor. When his son Ethan wants to push the boundaries, Jack must admit what he already knows about the Stillwater job:

"It's because I'm the chief that I can't do whatever I want. The guy before me did too much of that. I have to set a new tone -- and fast."

"He took his kids to crime scenes?"

Jack sighed. "I don't know. He was corrupt, is what I meant. I have to be extra careful what I do. Taking my teenage son to interview witnesses is a bad way to start."

And of course, Jack's going to have to earn the town's respect and challenge his predecessor in person, if he wants to hold the job.

Lenhardt spins a great story, full of lively action, intriguing twists, and a heavy dash of romantic tension. And when Jack's efforts to woo the bookshop owner fall apart -- not his fault, huge factors beyond his control -- the cases heat up and challenge all his skills.

This is a smooth and enjoyable small-town Texas mystery, with well-chosen police issues, strong emotions (criminal and otherwise), and top-tier pacing in the tension and suspense. Maybe Jack McBride is a little too balanced to take the Western prize away from Walt Longmire and all his depression and losses ... but reading one series and then the other is going to be a lot of fun, as Lenhardt continues to push Jack forward in his challenged new police role. Glad to have found this author, looking forward to more.