V.I. Warshawki, our favorite Private Investigator is back.
The hard working, feisty, mouthy, stubborn, sometimes
reckless PI has a job to do for her best friend in
Chicago,
Dr. Lotty Herschel. There is is no hesitation. V.I. is
is ready. Vi must track down the daughter of a friend
from
Vienna in World War II. Lolly and her childhood playmate
escaped the Holocaust and though they have drifted apart,
Lolly must help her daughter, Judy Binder, who is
troubled
and a serious drug addict.
If you enjoy a mystery about science, history, spies,
multi-generational dysfunction filled with too many family
secrets and lies, you will love CRITICAL MASS. The action
goes back and forth from present day Chicago to Vienna in
the past around the 1930's. The complicated plot will
keep
you guessing until the end when our favorite private eye
finds the truth she has been seeking and a smashing
surprise.
This plot is filled with action but complex plots and
subplots. Ground breaking research done by women
scientists
and physicists in Germany in the war, the race for the
atomic bomb ,the beginnings of the computer age, the rise
of
Homeland Security in our country, drug culture in Chicago,
and an insight into women and misogyny in the field of
Science in the years before and after World War II.
Secrets go back to Germany, Austria, Japan and England.
Complex characters are weaved into a plot that is
surprising, scary but keeps your attention.
Vi's neighbor and protector, Mr. Contreras, adds some fun
to
this dark plot. He cooks for his "doll", takes care of
her
dogs and is always there to listen. A little romance with
Jake, the bass player, via telephone and later in Vienna
where Jack tells Vi, "I can play a dirge if someone drops
your body into the Danube."
It's thrills, chills, and social ills in this high-
tension drama that will keep you riveted. CRITICAL MASS is
another dazzling
achievement from Sara Paretsky, that I found hard to put
down.
In 1939, Dr. Lotty Herschel, V. I. Warshawki’s closest
friend in Chicago, escaped the Holocaust in Vienna with
her childhood playmate, Kitty Saginor Binder. Though the
two drifted and animosities grew between them over the
years, when Kitty’s daughter finds her life in danger,
she turns to Lotty for help. In turn, Lotty summons V.I.
to take the case.
The threats on the daughter’s life at first seem a simple
case of bad drug dealings, but V.I. soon discovers that
they are just the tip of an iceberg of lies, secrets and
silence whose origins trace back to the deadly race among
America, Germany, Japan, and England to develop the
atomic bomb. And while the secrets may be old, the people
who continue to guard them will do anything to make sure
they stay buried.…
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