Chicago private investigator V.I. Warshawski returns in an exceptionally well-plotted thriller that focuses attention on V.I.'s longtime friend Lotty Herschel. In a handful of chapters that punctuate the contemporary narrative, the Austrian-born physician tells her own story. More than just a device to draw the many threads of this complex novel together, Lotty's history illuminates the depth and complexity of a character that readers of Sara Paretsky's many books-- like V.I. herself--only thought they knew.

At a conference on the recovery of Holocaust assets, a man named Paul Radbuka surfaces, claiming to be part of the past that Lotty left buried in war-torn Europe half a century ago. The aging Lotty is emotionally shattered. She has never talked to V.I. about those years following her escape from Austria--her youth as an orphaned teenager in England and the brilliant medical career that ultimately brought her to America. But Radbuka's claims have such a dramatic effect on her that V.I. feels compelled to investigate him. Radbuka's early life in a concentration camp has recently come back to him, aided by the ministrations of a recovered-memory therapist. Now he's demanding that Lotty and her friend Max, another émigré, acknowledge his connection to them, something neither is prepared to do. Is Radbuka really who he claims to be? And if he's the impostor Lotty says he is, why is she so terrified of him?

V.I.'s efforts to pin down Radbuka's identity dovetail with another case, that of a client with a beef against an insurance company that's trying to keep the state legislature from passing a Holocaust Asset Recovery Act. It's a little too tidy for coincidence, but since it gives Paretsky a chance to show off her knowledge of Chicago politics, the reader is delighted to accept it. While it's Lotty's voice that brings the dead to life and the past into the present, it's V.I.'s dogged perseverance and abiding affection for her friend that drive this powerful, brilliantly executed novel to a conclusion. This is one of Paretsky's strongest outings in years. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Already having established herself as an inventor of the female private eye and a master of the mystery format, Paretsky skillfully expands the form to tackle several convergent themes in a moving novel of discovery and redemption. V.I. "Vic" Warshawski has a traditional mystery to solve: the life insurance policy of black factory worker Aaron Sommers had been faithfully maintained, paid for weekly even when other demands surely seemed of greater urgency. But when Aaron's widow needed to collect, the company denied the claim, saying the policy had been cashed a decade earlier. That leads Vic to Ajax Life Insurance Co. and Ralph Devereux, whom she encountered in her very first case, Indemnity Only (1982). Her investigation is subtly intertwined with another much more personal and wrenching inquiry into the appearance of a man calling himself Paul Radbuka, whose recovered memory as a child survivor of the Holocaust leads him to claim a kinship with Vic's friend Max Loewenthal. Radbuka's claim has an unexpected and drastic affect on Lotty Herschel, Vic's friend and mentor. The twin investigations allow the author to explore simultaneously the issues raised by the Illinois Holocaust Asset Recovery Act and the issue of reparations for the descendants of slaves. Dark, absorbing, probing Paretsky's novel explores the complex web of degrees of guilt and complicity surrounding the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors, with Lotty's story emerging with compelling, terrible clarity and inevitability. (Sept. 11)Forecast: With a six-figure marketing campaign and a subject of universal interest, this novel should bring in lots of new readers who will ensure a healthy run on bestseller lists.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Sandra Burr gives a brilliant performance of this V.I. Warshawski thriller. Burr consistently provides each character with a distinct voice throughout the novel, no small feat considering the international cast of characters. And the audio provides nice touches, including altering voices so they sound like telephone conversations or voice mail messages. Best of all is Burr's rendering of Warshawski. She brings Paretsky's strong-willed and witty character to life, capturing her tough demeanor and heart of gold. A great story with an even greater reading make this novel a must-listen for fans of Paretsky and a delight for those discovering her for the first time. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Paretsky is in good form in this new V. I. Warshawski mystery, in which a clever amalgamation of two seemingly unrelated cases tests V. I.'s loyalty as well as her patience and investigative skill. In the first case, a deranged man yearning for contact with relatives who may have survived the Holocaust fixates on a family V. I. knows. His irrational behavior sends V. I.'s mentor and friend, Lotty Herschel, into a frightening tailspin over a long-buried secret that has tormented her since her since her youth in Nazi-controlled Eastern Europe. Concurrently, V. I. is called in to investigate a small-time insurance fraud, which suddenly explodes into a complicated morass of murder and local politics, with its own links to the terrible days of the Nazi regime. V. I. has mellowed somewhat over her years as a Chicago PI, and she steps with particular care here to protect her friends, but that doesn't mean the action's wanting: there are several dead bodies and lots of complications before V. I. works out all the connections. Even then, there are still a few unanswered questions. As usual, the Chicago backdrop is vividly imagined, and V. I. comes across as smart and appealing. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“[A] master of the mystery format, Paretsky skillfully expands the form to tackle several convergent themes in a moving novel of discovery and redemption.... Dark, absorbing, probing — Paretsky’s novel explores the complex web of degrees of guilt and complicity surrounding the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors, with Lotty’s story emerging with compelling, terrible clarity and inevitability.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review


From the Hardcover edition.


Review
?[A] master of the mystery format, Paretsky skillfully expands the form to tackle several convergent themes in a moving novel of discovery and redemption.... Dark, absorbing, probing ? Paretsky?s novel explores the complex web of degrees of guilt and complicity surrounding the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors, with Lotty?s story emerging with compelling, terrible clarity and inevitability.?
? Publishers Weekly, starred review


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

He came from out of the blue -- a man with an astonishing story of a childhood shattered by the Holocaust, and it's a story that has devastating consequences for V. I. Warshawski's cherished friend, Dr. Lotty Herschel, too. For now, the past that Lotty has struggled to forget has come back to haunt her, flooding her with memories that could destroy her life. And for V.I., who's already working on a case for a poor family cheated out of their life insurance, the need to help a friend will plunge her into a whirlpool of corporate intrigue and international insurance fraud that preys on the helpless -- and does not stop at murder.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"For V.I., the journey begins with a national conference in downtown Chicago, where angry protesters are calling for the recovery of Holocaust assets. Replayed on the evening news is the scene of a slight man who has stood up at the conference to tell an astonishing story of a childhood shattered by the Holocaust - a story that has devastating consequences for V.I.'s cherished friend and mentor, Lotty Herschel." "Lotty was a girl of nine when she emigrated from Austria to England, one of a group of children wrenched from their parents and saved from the Nazi terror just before the war broke out. Now stunningly - impossibly - it appears that someone from that long-lost past may have returned. With the help of a recovered-memory therapist, Paul Radbuka has recently learned his true identity. But is he who he claims to be? Or is he a cunning imposter who has usurped someone else's history...a history Lotty has tried to forget for over fifty years?" As a frightened V.I. watches her friend unravel, she sets out to help in the only way she can: by investigating Radbuka's past. Already working on a difficult case for a poor family cheated of their life insurance, she tries to balance Lotty's needs with her client's, only to find that both are spiraling into a whirlpool of international crime that stretches from Switzerland and Germany to Chicago's South Side. As the atrocities of the past reach out to engulf the living, V.I. struggles to decide whose memories of a terrible war she can trust, and moves closer to a chilling realization of the truth - a truth that almost destroys her oldest friend.

SYNOPSIS

The bestselling V.I. Warshawski novels have dazzled readers and earned the acclaim of critics everywhere. ￯﾿ﾽV.I. Warshawski rules,￯﾿ﾽ writes Newsweek, crowning her ￯﾿ﾽthe most engaging woman in detective fiction.￯﾿ﾽ Of V.I.'s creator, the Chicago Tribune says ￯﾿ﾽSara Paretsky has no peer.

FROM THE CRITICS

Washington Post Book Review

Spectacular -- complex, fast-paced yet ruminative, and imbued with the grim awareness that the past always catches up with us, sooner or later.

Publishers Weekly

Already having established herself as an inventor of the female private eye and a master of the mystery format, Paretsky skillfully expands the form to tackle several convergent themes in a moving novel of discovery and redemption. V.I. "Vic" Warshawski has a traditional mystery to solve: the life insurance policy of black factory worker Aaron Sommers had been faithfully maintained, paid for weekly even when other demands surely seemed of greater urgency. But when Aaron's widow needed to collect, the company denied the claim, saying the policy had been cashed a decade earlier. That leads Vic to Ajax Life Insurance Co. and Ralph Devereux, whom she encountered in her very first case, Indemnity Only (1982). Her investigation is subtly intertwined with another much more personal and wrenching inquiry into the appearance of a man calling himself Paul Radbuka, whose recovered memory as a child survivor of the Holocaust leads him to claim a kinship with Vic's friend Max Loewenthal. Radbuka's claim has an unexpected and drastic affect on Lotty Herschel, Vic's friend and mentor. The twin investigations allow the author to explore simultaneously the issues raised by the Illinois Holocaust Asset Recovery Act and the issue of reparations for the descendants of slaves. Dark, absorbing, probing Paretsky's novel explores the complex web of degrees of guilt and complicity surrounding the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors, with Lotty's story emerging with compelling, terrible clarity and inevitability. (Sept. 11) Forecast: With a six-figure marketing campaign and a subject of universal interest, this novel should bring in lots of new readers who will ensure a healthy run on bestseller lists.Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Sandra Burr gives a brilliant performance of this V.I. Warshawski thriller. Burr consistently provides each character with a distinct voice throughout the novel, no small feat considering the international cast of characters. And the audio provides nice touches, including altering voices so they sound like telephone conversations or voice mail messages. Best of all is Burr's rendering of Warshawski. She brings Paretsky's strong-willed and witty character to life, capturing her tough demeanor and heart of gold. A great story with an even greater reading make this novel a must-listen for fans of Paretsky and a delight for those discovering her for the first time. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

When she agrees to help lathe operator Isaiah Sommers press his claim for his recently deceased uncle's piddling $10,000 policy with Ajax Insurance, V.I. Warshawski has no idea that the case will blow up in her face-first with her former lover Ralph Devereux's insistence that Ajax paid out the policy ten years ago when they got proof that Aaron Sommers had died, then with the stunning news that muckraking Alderman Louis Durham has publicly tarred her as an Ajax toady determined to bilk the Sommers family out of their rightful due. But an unsought case is even uglier. A Holocaust survivor named Paul Radbuka, his repressed memories of his unspeakable past restored by hypnotherapist Rhea Wiell, has convinced himself that he's related to Vic's old friend Dr. Lotty Herschel. Now he's stalking Lotty and her intimates, Max Loewenthal and Carl Tisov, trying to force them to acknowledge him. As Lotty's nerves fray, a trail of corpses begins to form behind the two cases-the owner of the independent firm that sold the Aaron Sommers policy, the Ajax clerk in charge of the Sommers file-and Radbuka himself is shot. Just how, Vic wonders, are her two investigations related-and what's the deeper connection between the issues of Holocaust reparations and reparations for African-American slavery? Paretsky loves to bite off more than she can chew, and her tenth novel (after Hard Time) is her most fiercely ambitious to date. No wonder the heroically mounting complications are never quite brought under control: her furious energy keeps the final pages still churning.

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