Book Review: Total Recall

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Total Recall     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Sara Paretsky
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Private Investigator   Woman Main Character
Series: V.I. Warshawski # 11
Delacorte, Sept 2001, $25.95, 416 pp.

V(ictoria) I(phigenia) Warshawski is up to her neck in cases which is the norm for the feisty independent private detective that takes no guff from anyone. Isaiah Sommers, a black man, is furious when Ajax Insurance isn’t paying up on his uncle’s life insurance. They say the client’s widow presented the agent with a death certificate and cashed it in years ago. Isiah wants VI to get back the money due him.

While she is dealing with that case, Paul Radbuka claims he was a child survivor of the Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Repressed memories that came out during a hypnosis session leads him to VI’s friend, mentor and surrogate mother Dr. Lotty Herschel. She adamantly refuses to talk about any Radbukas. VI known for her intuitive hunches thinks these two disparate cases are linked but proving it is going to be impossible with important documents turning up missing and people getting shot.

Sara Paretsky raises some very interesting questions concerning companies who dealt with people who supported Hitler and those who were slave owners in the United States. TOTAL RECALL serves to make one ponder social issues something only very special authors are able to gain from the readers. VI is her magnificent self as she cuts through layers of misinformation to get at the truth. TOTAL RECALL is one of the better books in their long running series.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner