A great installment in the V.I. Warshawski series. The only reason why I didn’t give this 5 stars is that the technology angle flew over my head (pun intended) like each time I read about it. I still don’t understand it, and just shrugged and decided to enjoy the book.
“Overboard” follows V.I. as she is dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on her, her business, and the city of Chicago. V.I. is running her dogs when one of them gets away from her and goes down to the rocks and finds a young girl squeezed in between a location. V.I. realizes the young girl is near death and luckily rescuers get to her and get her out. V.I. thinks that may be the end of it, until she gets a call the mysterious Jane Doe has disappeared. V.I. agrees to help find the girl, while also working her other cases, and trying to get a local Jewish temple safe from vandalism. When things heat up and a family that V.I. grew up become connected to one of her cases, V.I. is starting to wonder what Jane Doe is involved with.
V.I. is her typical self. Still pushing and not backing down even when threatened. I thought the police aspect of this one was interesting and I liked how V.I. still respects law enforcement, but knows how much they need to change in the throes of the George Floyd murder.
We get V.I.’s 90 plus year old neighbor still thinking he can do whatever (he can’t) and Lottie disapproving of Vick putting herself in danger. And of course the Streeter brothers and Max. But we also get some new characters and supporters of V.I. that I hope show up in future books.
I didn’t know how Paretsky was going to tie V.I. helping out the local temple and the Jane Doe case together, but she managed to do so, though it was a bit clunky. The flow was smooth throughout though.
I have said in other books it seems that most authors are going to incorporate the COVID-19 pandemic into their works, and I thought Paretsky did a good job of that here. Of course our very liberal and feminist V.I. is all about masks and sanitizer. And I kind of laughed about how you get to see that most of the bad guys in this one don’t wear masks.
The ending was really good and I am curious if Paretsky is going to incorporate the overturning of Roe V. Wade into the next installment. We had short stories and some futuristic short stories written by Paretsky where abortion is outlawed and Lottie had to go on the run. I can imagine her real life ire is going to be shown via V.I.’s character.
