I REALLY wanted to give 'Hard Time' five stars because I BELIEVE! - in Sara Paretsky, in Paretsky's and her character V. I. Warshawski's causes - but the plot is a tad bit pushed into a shape to suit VI 's usual masochistic response to everyone's usual complete lack of faith and belief in her except for for her old neighbor, Contreras. There also is the usual addition of a couple of new characters who support her, but can't be open about it. Ok, ok, it's a winning formula for this series, but since I'm reading the books in order, what I'm really starting to crave is the introduction of a peer or lover who adores, respects and supports Warshawski as much as Contreras, but is the same age as her and HELPS her. I'm also craving that the Chicago establishment give this independent woman the benefit of the doubt on her current case obviously due her because of her past successes.

Sigh.

Warshawski almost hits a body in the street and wrecks her car to avoid running over the poor dying lady. She initially has no thought to investigate or make a single rude remark, but for some reason the police start a campaign of deadly harassment, abuse and wrongful imprisonment. One of the police detectives, Lemour, shows a particularly sadistic bent in hurting Warshawski, which forces her over the wall in clearing herself of whispered suspicions of drug dealing as well as saving her rapidly sinking detective agency because her clients are mailing her letters of dismissal. With legal expenses mounting, and the police planting drugs in her office and beatings coming at her right and left, she makes a desperate decision to search for answers inside a privately run prison/jail instead of bailing out.

Prisons are horrible places. Even VI can't whip up any true spunk while inside. This is a stomach turning, sad read. I even found it difficult to review.

# 7: Hard Time by Sara Paretsky:

'Darling Murray, when I'm in a catfight you see the gashes a jaguar leaves. But it's hard for even a jungle cat to do much against a shark. Are you her partner or her patsy?'

Synopsis: VI Warshawski finds a dead woman in the road and takes on a shit-ton of Chicago's elite to uncover a conspiracy and champion the underdog.

You know what? I disliked this book enough that I'm not even bothering to review it. I made it through 200 pages of decent if bracing crime fiction, and then the wheels just came right off and I skimmed another 185. What an awful, depressing grind of a book. Blech.

The narration was really bad….

Maybe I am too picky by half, but this was my first Parensky novel, and it really didn't inspire me to pick up any more. This book is too long - I felt that the prison sequence was necessary, but that the ending was just tacked on for a climatic confrontation between the bad guy and VI. The minor characters were entertaining, but I felt the villians to be one-dimentional. Entertaining, but not very substantive.

More action with V.I. Warshawski right in the middle of it! In this instalment, she's on her way home (with her office woman in the car) and barely stops in time to avoid hitting a woman lying in the middle of the road. She calls for assistance, a couple of police arrive and the ambulance, and the woman is taken off to hospital. Next thing, the woman dies in hospital, her body disappears, and V.I. is being accused of having hit her with the car. On top of that, her journalist friend is acting strange, a TV star is acting out of character (having an old friend evicted from her party), and the boss of a large security firm is being unpleasant.

Always a good read - I'm totally enjoying this series.

Not much to say here besides the fact that I really enjoyed this one a lot. We get to see VI go into the prison system in order to find out how an escapee from a woman's prison was found on a road in Chicago. We get to see VI and other characters go through some changes in this one due to a new age of American politics as well.

VI in this one is accused of a hit and run after she barely misses hitting a woman's body in the road. Though VI has her run ins with the law at times, she still doesn't know why the police are looking hard at her for this one. When she turns up details on the dead woman which ties her into a high profile private security firm, it becomes pretty clear that VI may not be able to get herself out of trouble in this one.

VI is a bit slower in this one. She is definitely feeling her age. She also feels a bit flat since her long time rival and friend Murray is now being pushed to do more public friendly stories and the era of print media has seemingly died in Chicago. What I think made me like this one a lot more is that honestly VI is left friendless in this one and has to survey by her own wits. Her assistant pretty much quits and blames VI for how she behaves which is why she is always targeted. And VI has a power crazed Chicago cop on her heels who is not going to stop until he has her arrested.

The book shifts gears though with it's smart insight into the prison system and how easy it is to abuse women behind bars. Some of the descriptions were stomach inducing.

I do have to say though I loved this book, I found most of the circumstances involved to be highly implausible. I have finished a bunch of the books in this series recently, and I do have to say that after "Fire Sale" I started to just feel a shift in quality. I constantly compare VI to my other favorite female private eye, Kinsey Malone. And I think what gets me the most is that VI is antagonistic towards everyone and even the police. With what she gets up to I am surprised she hasn't been arrested for how many times she gets involved in a police matter. And I just don't like how she treats others around her. That said, I would be a happy person if the character of Mr. Contreras would be written off from this series along with the two dogs that VI ends up bringing everywhere in the latest books.

I went into this book with low expectations and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I'm just starting to read some of these detective/mystery/police procedural novels because my dad thinks I should write one. Ha! He's never given up on rooting for a career that I now think I will never have (as a writer). It's very sweet. Anyway, I think this book was pretty intelligent and drew attention to some issues that might not make it into other novels of this type (prison abuse, domestic help, illegal immigration etc.) . I will read another in the series at some point.

I was very sick when I read this so it may have influenced my perception…good but a little meh compared to Tunnel Vision. And I’d kind of like one to go by where Vic is not hospitalized, but whatever.