Paretsky unearths ‘Fallout’ of murderous secrets
Private investigator V.I. Warshawski is as Chicago as the Bean, the “L” and deep dish pizza. So readers may be surprised when they open “Fallout,” Sara Paretsky’s new novel. Paretsky has sent her fictional meal ticket off to Lawrence, Kan.
Don’t worry, though. She brings plenty of big-shouldered mayhem with her, to the chagrin of many Jayhawks, including a local sergeant who checks up on her.
“The consensus seems to be that you’re honest, you get results, you’re reckless. And you’re a pain in the ass.” Her reply? “If I die down here in Kansas, make sure they chisel that on my tombstone.”
Paretsky will talk about her novel and sign books Thursday at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Golda Meir Library, 2311 E. Hartford Ave.
While Kansas may be new territory to Warshawski, it’s familiar ground to her creator Paretsky, who grew up outside Lawrence; her father was a professor at the University of Kansas.
At the outset of “Fallout,” Warshawski is tapped in Chicago to locate a young black filmmaker who may be either the perpetrator of a messy gym break-in or a collateral victim. Soon she’s headed to Kansas on the trail of the filmmaker and a venerable actress he’s documenting.
What begins as a search for two missing people mushrooms into a complex thriller involving a missile silo, secret biological research and men in black, with tense excursions into the painful segregated past, and so much depending on the testimony of a troubled woman with mental health and substance abuse problems.
The presence, and possible motives, of a Russian scientist in the story may jump out at readers unnerved by the current political environment.
Paretsky’s tale of a big-city private investigator who turns a small town inside out put me in mind of Dashiell Hammett’s classic “Red Harvest.”
But here’s a key difference: Hammett’s Continental Op deliberately sets out to tear the burg apart. Warshawski’s destabilizing magic is just the byproduct of the convoluted thread she keeps yanking — and of her passion for the underdog. Along the way, many locals make a point of telling her she’s an outsider who knows nothing about them. But Vic has a good nose for when they’re hiding something from her.
Speaking of noses, her co-star on the perilous trip is Peppy, the golden retriever she shares with her neighbor, who plays a plausible role in key discoveries.
In contrast to loner private eyes of yore, Warshawski is a thoroughly related person who relies on a network of friends and helpers, and who finds time to care for her animal while saving the world.
She balances old-fashioned doorknocking gumshoeing with DNA swabs and paid databases. She’s also a person who listens to the voices of the elderly, the mentally ill and the often ignored. There’s no sign that she’ll run out of work any time soon.