4 stars for a hard edged story of high level corruption at a private prison. V. (Vic) I. Warshawski is a private investigator in Chicago, Illinois. She is on the way home from a party when she almost hits a woman lying in the street. She swerves to avoid her and crashes her car into a fire hydrant. She and her friends try to save the dying woman, but the woman dies shortly thereafter in the hospital. Even though Vic was breathalyzed negative, she threatened with an arrest the next day on a trumped up hit and run charge.
This gets Vic to investigating how the woman came to be lying in the road severely injured and comes up against powerful people who try to destroy her.
Hows she manages to solve the mystery and overcome the powerful enemies is a thrilling story. There are scenes of sexual abuse and violence, so this may not be appropriate for cozy mystery fans.
Two quotes:
Vic describing a relationship: "It's true that Murray and I once had a fling, but that was history so ancient there weren't even any archaeological remains to look through."
Wealthy neighborhood: "Each house--if that's what you call something with twenty rooms and four chimneys--was set so far back behind trees and fences that you saw only fragments of facades or gables."
I read this book in 4 days.

Always fun to read her books. Very quick interesting stories. Yum Yum

Too long. Too idealistic. Too unrealistic. But I keep turning the pages because of Vic’s unrelenting persistence and also Mr. Contreras, her neighbor, who is Mr. Stand By Me.

Vic as usual takes on a non-paying client, a dead escaped prisoner. She totals her beloved TransAm avoiding a person laying in the street. Later the police come for her and accuse her of hit and run. The initial police report has been lost. The person in the street dies and her body disappears from the morgue. Then the same cop who tried to pin a hit and run on her plants drugs in her office. What is going on? Vic just can’t avoid trouble. She’s up against some connected and heavy hitters. It’s all related to prison labor, corruption, and Hollywood. Vic is arrested on kidnapping charges. Rather than make bail she stays in jail to find the truth. It’s ugly and as usual not all the guilty get their just desserts.

This one is starting to get a bit far-fetched...jumping onto a train and spending time in prison...?! Still, gotta love VI. She's one tough lady.

Satisfying read!

This was my first Paretsky. I had banked on the fact that most authors recap who their characters are and what the background stories and connections are. No such luck. This wasn't a bad read - it definitely kept my attention for the 45 minutes it took me to get one mile down the road this evening.

I found the amount and recurrence of injuries to Vic to be over the top and unbelievable. And the romance felt like the author thinking, "Oops! It's almost over and I forgot to include some romance!" Barring those two things, which play heavily in the end and are thus on the top of my mind, I enjoyed it.