Monday, April 17, 2017

Fallout

Fallout by Sara Paretsky
HarperCollins: 4/18/17
eBook review copy; 448 pages
ISBN-13: 9780062435842
V. I. Warshawski Series #18

Fallout by Sara Paretsky is the highly recommended 18th book in her long-running V. I. Warshawski series. This time the case takes V. I. out of Chicago to Lawrence, Kansas.

Angela Creedy and Bernadine Fouchard (Brush Back, 2015) want  Warshawski to find Angela's cousin, August Veriden. The aspiring film maker is missing and the police want to question him over the ransacking the Six-Points Gym, where he works as a personal trainer. It appears that August left Chicago with aging black actress, Emerald Ferring. The two were headed to Kansas to film a documentary about her origins. The trail leads to Lawrence, KS, where the University of Kansas is located and the story evolves into more than simply a search for missing persons.

In Kansas Warshawski becomes enmeshed with events that happened in 1983 involving a protest at a missile silo outside of the town and plenty of small town gossip and politics. In response to posters she put up downtown, Sonia Kiel, the mentally -ll daughter of imminent retired KU professor Nathan Kiel, contacts Warshawski to tell her where she saw Emerald and August, but the call ends abruptly. When Warshawski goes to the bar Sonia called from she finds the woman drugged and unconscious. Warshawski calls 911, but this marks the first of several calls she will have to make while unraveling the events of 1983 and how they relate to her present case.

The plot on this outing does meander a bit off track and loses sight of the original case for a good chunk of the novel. Paretsky does pull it all together in the end and solves her case. There are several bad guys in this novel along with several ill-informed citizens. Warshawski continues to have an amazing ability to follow the least of clues and ingratiate herself with the right people while antagonizing the bad guys.

In the opening "Thanks" Paretsky explains that she grew up in Lawrence and her father was a professor and researcher at the University of Kansas. Lawrence is home to KU (1866), but also to Haskell Indian Nations University (1884). The population is probably around 90,000, not huge, but the city is an easy commute to nearby cities, including Topeka and the KC metro area. There are numerous colleges and universities nearby. I'm going to have to take this review a bit personal because of the location Paretsky choose. I totally get taking a place you knew growing up, and switching things up to suit your story by using the real location but with a new layout and altered terrain. I guess what I found rather troubling was her dislike of Lawrence. It became rather obvious that she harbors some latent animosity toward the city. I've live in Lawrence for about six years, but I have yet to encounter the cliquish behavior, city-wide gossip, or the prejudice she implies still exists. I actually lived in this area of the country many years ago. After moving several times to cities in other states across the country, I chose to move back to this area. So, if you were ever thinking of relocating to the area don't base your decision on what how this fictional novel portrays Lawrence.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.

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