Indemnity Only

Book 29 of my 2016 Reading Challenge

read from March 21 - 24

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky

Book 1 in the V.I. Warshawski series

Summary (via Goodreads)

Meeting an anonymous client late on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. But trouble is Chicago private eye V.I. Warshwski's specialty. Her client says he's the prominent banker, John Thayer. Turns out he's not. He says his son's girlfriend, Anita Hill, is missing. Turns out that's not her real name. V.I.'s search turns up someone soon enough -- the real John Thayer's son, and he's dead. Who's V.I.'s client? Why has she been set up and sent out on a wild-goose chase? By the time she's got it figured, things are hotter -- and deadlier -- than Chicago in July. V.I.'s in a desperate race against time. At stake: a young woman's life.

My Opinion

This book was published in 1982 and it does not hold up well today.  It's pretty dated.  I know things change so I absolutely overlook the technology/cultural references; if anything, they give me a little smile to remember how things were.  But I can't overlook the things like all the "girls can't/shouldn't be detectives" nonsense V.I. deals with, or the fact that she's described as "stunning" in her suit as she works twice on the same page.

The mystery itself wasn't bad.  It held my interest and then it really picked up at the end and I couldn't wait to race through the last few chapters to find out the resolution.

Overall, not a series I expect to continue but I would probably read the author again if she wrote anything more recently.

Quote from the Book

"There really are times when I wish I did have a couple of children and was doing the middle-class family thing. But that's a myth, you know: very few people live like an advertisement, with golden harmony, and enough money, and so on. And I know I'm feeling a longing for a myth, not the reality. It's just - I get scared that I've made the wrong choice, or - I don't quite know how to say it. Maybe I should be home watching the soaps, maybe I'm not doing the best thing with my life. So if people try to suggest it, I bite their heads off."