Here, Paretsky dispatches her Chicago private investigator on a particularly surrealist adventure. VI takes a tumble into a dark overgrown pond while on night-time surveillance at a secluded mansion and encounters a dead journalist in the weeds. The subsequent police investigation strikes her as cursory and VI puts this down to the fact that the victim was black and that her body turned up in a well-heeled white residential area. As always, miscarriages of justice and police indifference have a galvanizing effect on Warshawski, who believes the death is not suicide but murder and her own investigations uncover some dark family secrets.
As often before, the police place obstructions in her path--but this time it appears to be two separate police departments and some very well-placed and influential people. Things are complicated by VI's involvement in another case--a youth with a possible terrorist background who is persona non grata with the government after 9/11. This is Paretsky as her admirers like her: Warshawski taking a dive into a heady brew of corruption, both personal and political. --Barry Forshaw
]]>Warshawski soon becomes involved in both stories. As her journalist boyfriend prepares for a trip to Afghanistan to investigate the dismal human rights record of the Taliban (a timely, if not prescient, angle from Paretsky), a friend of his staying from New York decides to embark on a book on recovered memory, inspired by a TV special on the therapist and her star client. Hired by the author to help check out the duo's authenticity, VI finds herself on a collision course between the past and the present and between her professional life and her close friendship with a group of Jewish friends. One of these, the spiky surgeon Lotty Herschel (a regular Warshawski character), is deeply disturbed to find her own past may be linked in some way to that of the troubled client.
With her sharp wit, cynicism and daredevil approach to her job, Warshawski is as annoyingly loveable as ever. There are enough twists and turns to this, her latest outing, to offer a challenging read to die-hard fans and newcomers alike. Irritatingly, however, Paretsky leaves some major strands of her story untied, leaving you wondering and, as ever, waiting anxiously for the next VI Warshawski adventure. --Carey Green
]]>Michael Connelly recounts the inspiration he drew from Poe's poetry while researching one of his books. Stephen King reflects on Poe's insight into humanity's dark side in "The Genius of 'The Tell-Tale Heart.'" Jan Burke recalls her childhood terror during late-night reading sessions. Tess Gerritsen, Nelson DeMille, and others remember the classic B-movie adaptations of Poe's tales. And in "The Thief," Laurie R. King complains about how Poe stole all the good ideas . . . or maybe he just thought of them first.
Powerful and timeless, In the Shadow of the Master is a celebration of one of the greatest literary minds of all time.
The Mystery Writers of America, founded in 1945, is the foremost organization for mystery writers and other professionals dedicated to the field of crime writing.
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