Breakdown is a somewhat recent (2012) addition to Sara Paretsky’s Chicago-based V.I. Warshawski detective series (started in 1982, Breakdown is the 15th out of 20 V.I. novels). This outing kicks off with V.I. leaving a fancy awards gala to help her cousin track down a group of missing teenage girls who have snuck out to re-enact scenes from the latest teen novel sensation, a vampire thriller. V.I. finds the girls in a rainy graveyard, right next to the still-warm corpse of a small-time Chicago private detective, who has been stabbed through the heart with a steel stake. Less than 24 hours later, V.I.’s former law school roommate, the brilliant but mentally unstable Leydon, is pushed from a balcony while waiting to meet with V.I. In addition to these two main plot threads, we’re introduced to a Sean-Hannity-esque tv host, a George-Soros-esque Jewish billionaire and a host of other side characters. Who killed the detective? Who pushed Leydon? What are Hannity and Soros trying to hide? Dun, dun, dun!
Although I really like V.I. as a character and I love the Chicago setting, I had trouble getting into this particular installment of the series. Paretsky crammed a lot of plot into the first few pages, and for the first 150 pages or so I had a hard time keeping up with exactly which string was being pulled. I also found myself frustrated with some of the characters, and V.I.’s endearing patience with them- I understand that she was trying to protect the group teenage girls from police interrogation, but I didn’t find the girls sympathetic enough to warrant the hoops V.I. had to jump through to accomplish this. Tough love V.I.! Finally, there seemed to be an excess of pop culture riffs crammed into one novel (Twilight, Hannity and Soros!) and winding up of both threads in tandem felt just a little too convenient.
Despite these criticisms, once I was 150 pages in, I did enjoy the ride this book took me on. The Chicago setting was particularly fun, as I was reading just before my first ever trip to the city (I was google mapping as I read along, and then got to see some of the places in real life just days later! So cool). I also really appreciate a female detective- it seems like most of the detective novels I’ve read lately feature mostly male detectives (Jo Nesbo, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, etc.) so the female protagonist felt fresh.