Guardian Angel

V.I. Warshawski #7

by Sara Paretsky

Racine Avenue is going upscale—bad news for hand-to-mouth residents like V I Warshawski. As tax bills skyrocket, newcomers pressure old inhabitants into fixing up their homes or moving out. To the yuppies on the block the worst eyesore belongs to old Hattie Frizell, whose yard is “returning to native prairie, complete with hubcaps.” Their block club wants her and her five dogs gone.

V I and Hattie have a relationship of sorts: one of those five dogs gave V I’s dog Peppy an unwelcome litter. When Hattie slips in her bath and is rushed unconscious to the hospital, V I feels compelled to get involved. But neighboring lawyer Todd Pichea and his wife, Chrissie, act swiftly to get the courts to make them Hattie’s legal guardians. V I returns from a business trip to find they’ve put the old woman’s dogs to sleep. Furious, V I starts poking around in the Picheas’ affairs, hoping to turn up something scandalous enough to make them lose their guardianship.

Hattie isn’t the detective’s only worry. When her downstairs neighbor’s oldest friend disappears, Mr. Contreras persuades V I to investigate. As she probes both problems, V I uncovers a scandal linking one of Chicago’s oldest industrial families to union fraud and a politically connected bank. Her investigation takes her into the depths of the steamy Sanitary Canal and brings her eyeball-to-eyeball with her ex-husband, Dick Yarborough. When her dear friend Lotty Herschel and her own lawyer turn against her, V I is left alone to struggle with the most serious case of her career.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Detective, Audiobook

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Sara Paretsky is a modern American author of detective fiction. Paretsky was raised in Kansas, and graduated from the state university with a degree in political science. She did community service work on the south side of Chicago in 1966 and returned in 1968 to work there. She ultimately completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago, entitled The Breakdown of Moral Philosophy in New England Before the Civil War, and finally earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Married to a professor of physics at the University of Chicago, she has lived in Chicago since 1968.

The protagonist of all but two of Paretsky's novels is V.I. Warshawski, a female private investigator. Warshawski's eclectic personality defies easy categorization. She drinks Johnnie Walker Black Label, breaks into houses looking for clues, and can hold her own in a street fight, but also she pays attention to her clothes, sings opera along with the radio, and enjoys her sex life.

Paretsky is credited with transforming the role and image of women in the crime novel. The Winter 2007 issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection is devoted to her work.

Her two books that are non-Warshawski novels are : Ghost Country (1998) and Bleeding Kansas (2008).

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review
3.499999 of 5 stars (therefore rounded down!) for Guardian Angel, the 7th book in the mystery series, written in 1992 by Sara Paretsky. This book was a slight turning point in the series for me. VI has always been a bit of a recluse, a little difficult to swallow and sometimes bitter. But it was part of her charm and personality, and you always understood her. In this book, she's fighting for something she strongly believes needs to be fixed, and several of her cases are colliding. At the same time, her friends are warning her to slow down, remove herself from a few situations and to think about what she's choosing to do. While they don't truly turn their backs on her, they've made it clear she's crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed. What do you do when you feel your friends have abandoned you for your choices? And what's a reader to do when you're concerned about a character you love? Is she going too rogue? Do you believe her? Why and What is going on? Keep asking the questions... it's worth it at the end, but it does push the envelope for a bit in how much you can tolerate how VI behaves.

That said, the mystery is of course great. VI tackles several social topics, especially understanding who stands up for people when they can no longer stand up for themselves? And when you add in unscrupulous people, battles between lawyers and the bad side of town, it's bound to get complicated. This one is worth reading if you'll only sample a few in the series.

About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.

[Phrynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure why this series is so addictive but it absolutely is! Like many other reviewers I can find lots of faults with each individual book but overall they move forward in such a compelling way that I cannot help but continue.
And of course despite any faults they are all totally readable. There is always a lot of action and Vic manages to get herself into amazing scrapes and then escapes in Superhero fashion. The details of every day life with Peppy and her pups and Mr Contreras are always entertaining and then there is a mystery to unravel as well.
This book was interesting for the way Vic is becoming more introspective and is beginning to maybe understand a little of why she is as abrasive as she is. She also has an actual relationship going on although I except that to be temporary.
I will have no problems with moving on to the next book as soon as possible.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, so in number 7, 'Guardian Angel', in the private detective V. I. Warshawski series it appears V.I. Warshawski's inner demons are swamping her better judgement. The decisions and impulsive chances she is taking are not only putting her own life at risk, but those of her friends. Warshawski is doing less and less planning and more and more emotional reacting, leading to a defensive posture which is precluding everything but solving the case, even when it means losing her life. Her nightmares, which open almost every chapter, seem to be pointing to a childhood for which she unconsciously feels much guilt. Her parents died of lingering illnesses, and that circumstance is coloring VI's life more and more. And she. can't. stop.

Rock and roll. Or, anyway, VI is rocking and rolling many many many many times before the last chapter! Is there an inch of unscarred skin left on her body?

Her substitute grandfather/neighbor, Mr. Contreras, hires VI when an old friend is found drowned after a disappearance of several days. Mitch Kruger had told a story of malfeasance at the company he had worked for. Mitch claims he had seen skulduggery occurring at Diamond Head, an engine maker factory, where both Mitch and Contreras worked. Kruger had been in hard times, and he had not been sober for years. Until his death, Warshawski wasn't too concerned, except for the fact that the pension Contreras receives from Diamond Head may also be at risk if Mitch was right about the malfeasance.

An old neighbor down the street falls in her shower and is hospitalized. Mrs. Frizell is in her 80's and is an unpleasant, cranky lady, but she adores her five dogs. Alas, her neighbors find that the dogs are not so lovable with the smell and barking, but most put up with it. Unfortunately, the neighborhood is in the middle of being yuppified (book was written in 1992), and a particularly noxious wealthy couple, the Picheas, has moved in with no tolerance for old people, dogs or poor people. But when VI discovers this couple has had themselves declared Mrs. Frizell's guardian and has had her dogs euthanized while she is sick in the hospital from her fall, VI is not going to stand for it!

After Warshawski learns the yuppies are connected to her Ex-husband's legal firm as is Diamond Head, she wonders if somehow the cases are connected. Knowing that at least the people involved in the two cases seem to be connected, she puts on the afterburners in pursuit of answers. Sadly, VI abuses her friends in her headstrong and relentless chase of justice and truth. Some of them will not want to be friends anymore at the conclusion of these intricate cases.

Why do I love this VI adventure, despite the too-tight plot coincidences and VI's reckless hell of her own creation? You might as well question why I love Batman, Spider-Man, Dr. Who, Jack Harkness and graphic comics. Or why it's the bad guys who catch my eye in real life, even if I'm too smart (now) to get involved. If it is accountants you find fascinating to read about, or princess Romances, this is never going to be on your list anyway. If you want procedurals or cozies, the Warshawski series won't work for you. But if emo-suffering but still tough P.I.'s who come to the rescue, and climb mountains to do so, is what feels good (especially after family holiday celebrations or the boss wrote you up again or the car doesn't start), I give Parestsky a huge thank you for creating the well-written genre character Warshawski. She is Tarzan, James Bond and James Rockford (the Rockford Files, circa 1974) combined, but she is a female who cares about couture, even if she continously destroys her clothes after a single wearing in EVERY book!

[Rodrigo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Muy regulera. Es mi primer libro de esta autora y la verdad se me ha hecho largo. La historia tiene poca chicha, y el desenlace no es muy sorprendente. 2/10

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am in the process of trying to listen to this entire series in order in the audible format more than 12 years after I began reading the books. I think I once owned almost all of the books that had been published in the print format. Mostly I bought them used and they were very successfully sold on eBay when I began selling my personal library.

I was surprised to see that I only gave this book 3 stars. I must’ve talked about it in this long review that I wrote back then, but it was probably just because I didn’t relate so much to the particular topics in this book for some reason. It is interesting that as I go through the series Quickly moving from book to book, I find myself more disturbed by the characteristics of the main character. She was at the beginning of the era, where many of the main characters in crime and detective series had somewhat mixed characteristics of good and bad and the Law people pretty regularly tread a fairly questionable path not following the law in all cases. VI is clearly the good guy so we tend to forgive the good guy when they have to bend the rules a little bit in order to win out over the bad guy. VI regularly finds herself one way or the other with dead bodies. In this book, she is interrupted by the bad guys in the midst of one of her frequent B&Es and she actually shoots one of the guys who is trying to track her down.

There are quite a few relationship issues that are touched on in this book. VI has another boyfriend and occasional bed partner. She has been averaging a new one every book so far. The author wants us to know that heroines are not Saints and that VI has a body! And the first dog will be joined in the future by one of her puppies.

_____________
VI Warshawski has lived in a Chicago co-op on Racine Avenue for five years. It is a changing neighborhood with an influx of residents with more money who are fixing up their houses and making the old-timers a little out of place. The book starts out with the dog V.I. shares with her seventy-seven year old downstairs neighbor having eight puppies. Under normal circumstances that would be plenty of excitement for quite a while. But this is a mystery book so there must be more to keep readers turning the pages.

This is the seventh book in the series. The first book was published in 1982 and now it is 1991. V.I. is thirty-nine, a decade older, and still lives alone and exercises by running, often with Peppy the dog. It is never surprising to find that her life is threatened more than once in a book. But you always know she is going to make it through all challenges since there is the next book in the series waiting on the bookshelf.

V.I. often moves about in the seedier side of town in her job as a private detective. She has some regular customers for whom she does background checks and other investigations to pay for her food, housing and car. Early in this book, she has occasion to go into a very run down house in her neighborhood to check on an older woman with five dogs who had not seen for a while. She also goes to a very disreputable rooming house, a bar and an old factory trying to locate an older man who had disappeared several days before. Nothing is ever simple, of course, and life gets more interesting and dangerous as both of these situations develop. And don’t forget the eight puppies!

This book is much longer than her earlier ones. But it has been made longer by a lot of not-so-interesting filler material of a missing person and a guardianship case. As the story moves along, V.I. manages to offend or annoy just about everyone with whom she comes into contact. Not much high velocity action until the end of the first half of the book when V.I.’s doctor friend Lotty is beaten up when she is mistaken for V.I. since she is driving V.I.’s sporty Trans-Am. Then V.I. moves into some of her standard methods of operation.

Technology had failed me. I was going to have to do my detecting the old-fashioned way, by breaking and entering.

Her B&E picklocks were confiscated by the police several books ago but she has by now obtained another set for the mere price of $700. She uses them regularly and quite effectively. (But, as simply a facilitating device, they do not provide the story with much action or excitement.) She also gets her Smith & Wesson out of her wall safe, always an indicator of action escalation.

Since Paretsky uses first person narrative, we get to spend a lot of time in Warshawski’s head working out a myriad of things, many mundane.

The decision on what to wear was complex. I needed to look professional for a conversation with Paragon managers. I wanted to be cool. I needed to be able to carry my gun. And I needed to be able to run if necessary. In the end I decided on jeans with a silk houndstooth jacket. It would look professional in California. That would have to be close enough.

V.I. thinking does not get my adrenalin pumping! Maybe it is just that the last book I read was a thriller by Karin Slaughter and Guardian Angel suffers by comparison.

“I’ve been thinking. It’s what I do for a living, you know. A lot of my work is trying to figure out why people do what they do. …”

Do you light up when you hear the phrase “financial investigations”? I didn’t think so. That is the main source of Warshawski’s business income. When she starts looking at spreadsheets after she has broken into a corporate office, you know the physical action is not particularly spectacular even if the mental gears are grinding. Industrial espionage sounds exciting, doesn’t it? No? Well, maybe you’re right.

V.I. has a lot of nerve. She goes into a industrial building in the middle of the night, is discovered by some men working there, shoots at them wounding one and jumps into a canal to escape. So she is trespassing at night, shoots at people who presumably have some reason to be there, is eventually returned to her home by the police to discover that it has been broken into and trashed. I keep reminding myself that this is fiction and that I had actually been hoping for the action to stir things up. But I sure do like a private eye who practices birth control when she should.

In spite of “financial investigations” sounding dull and boring, there is eventually some action and a dead body. Killings do up the ante on intensity as does making mistakes. Ms. W says:

“The worst thing you can do in an investigation is slow yourself down chewing over what you did wrong. When the case is finished you can take some time and try to learn from your mistakes. But when you’re in the middle of it – you just have to be like the Duke of Wellington – forget about it and go on.”

Stepping over the bodies is sometimes required although V.I. occasionally has the good graces to turn a little green and retch. But does it seem like illegal business dealings – white collar crime – could lead to the same adverse gut reaction?

“… a company wants to convert a union’s pension fund to an annuity and pocket the cash. They get the duly elected officers of the collective bargaining unit to sign onto the plan…. Now, suppose the officers sign on without putting it to a vote of the rank and file. Would the courts see that as legal?”

Paretsky does deal with social issues in her books. Issues that other mystery writers might leave alone. I like that. In this book one of the issues is interracial dating and hatred. While it does not play a major role in the plot, it does come up more than several times and creates some tension and discomfort. And it seems like it might carry forward into future books in the series.

It is always hard to figure out how V.I. manages financially since the matters that take up the most time in her books are, as she calls them, pro bono. But just as she always lands on her feet with her nine lives, she always seems to keep up the rent and to eat out a lot although she does complain a lot about not having enough money to buy a new pair of Nikes for running. Like some of the companies she investigates, her finances are somewhat mysterious.

Guardian Angel has a lot of loose ends to tie up and doesn’t do a great job doing it as far as I am concerned. All the t’s are dotted and the i’s are crossed. That’s right, a little mixed up. I am torn between three and four stars. Maybe white collar crime and its resolution just didn’t do it for me. There was some tension in the story in the second half but it just seemed like there was too much filler to make a two-hundred and forty page book into three-hundred and seventy pages. So, while I settle on three stars, I am still looking forward to seeing how Paretsky moves forward in the next book of the series when V.I. Warshawski moves into her forties.

[Linda Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title to this book can have two interpretations. Our heroine, V.I. Warshawski, is a champion of the underdog. It seems that she takes on at least as many pro-bono investigations as paid jobs. But Vic hates to see the system crush those who are unable to defend themselves. The second meaning is that Vic must have her own guardian angel. She escapes certain death numerous times during each of these novels. One of the more interesting aspects of this story is that her ex-husband seems to have somehow become involved with the bad guys. That could be because his new wife is related to them. Anyway, there are several plot lines which do intersect as the book progresses. Vic's neighbor, Mr. Contreras, is visited by an old friend who insinuates that he has found a way to extract a lot of money from their former employer. His body is found floating in a canal. A crotchety elderly woman who lives down the street from them takes a bad fall in her home. While she is in the hospital, the yuppie couple who live across the street manage to get guardianship of her affairs. They promptly have the woman's five dogs put to sleep and begin to search through her papers. Meanwhile, Vic spots her ex-husband in a prominent position at a charity fund-raising event and becomes curious as to his connection. It isn't long before Vic is being followed and threatened and her best friend is beaten up after they trade cars so that the detective can pursue her investigations. Once again, some of the technical details of the nefarious plots do confuse me. But there is an exciting story here as our intrepid V.I. Warshawski does her best to protect the innocent and expose the guilty. On to the next book in this great series.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Clearly we're supposed to be charmed by V.I. Warshawski's rough-edged, tough broad, devil-may-care feminism, but I found her to be a rude harpy, a 39-year-old with the impulse control of a petulant toddler. Throwing coffee on people? Really? And while I love the topic of corruption in pension plans, this wasn't the most scintillating treatment of it I've read.

[Lukas Kawika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one just wasn't for me. Maybe it's since I've gotten used to the small, silly, self-contained Agatha Chrstie style mysteries where there's six folks in a room and one kicks the bucket and it's one of the remaining five, but - Guardian Angel is big and busy and dense, no matter which way you look at it. It's a whole lot of high-level corporate stuff, advisory boards and presidents and co-op heads, and I honestly had a pretty hard time keeping track of what exactly was going on or what developments were important, or even which developments were currently taking place.

I suppose I should say that this says it's Warshawski #7, but it's the first one I've read. Even so I didn't feel too terribly off in terms of setting and characters: all the important folks were summed up pretty well through their actions, behavior, and dialogue with Vic so that I could understand who was who and which history was where, but I was never quite clear on the actual timeframe of the book. The best I could come to is that it's "likely" late 80s-early 90s? There's never a date later than 1988 mentioned, and the technology seems to fall in line with that era.

The action's a little dozy, too. I understand that's not the focus or point of a story like this, but the scenes were few and far between, and while intense for the sake of the characters, not much really happens. I also gotta go along with what a lot of other folks are saying in these reviews - it seems like Vic is in a world that's almost completely and totally hostile to her, & one that she's hostile towards right back in return, regardless of who it is. She's constantly barking at everyone around her and receiving the same in turn (though a lot of the ire she receives can reasonably be chalked up to her being a woman in her specific line of work, in a world with -that- specific culture). Her world's a scary place and she's gotta be rough and tough to make it through, and I get that, but still.

But, yeah, I kinda hate to say but for the most part this one went over my head. I don't feel like I can properly recommend it either way because of that.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it’s nice to read a crime book that is not about serial killers or sex perverts. Vic is a bad tempered private detective with her 78 year old neighbor manage to get into dangerous situations. I also like the dog aspect with Peppy.

When her neighbors friend Mitch goes missing Vic becomes involved in a case linked to another elderly neighbor who ends up in hospital. Lawyers do not come out of this story well.

Financial shenanigans, union pension fund and scamming the elderly are all part of the story. Vic gets into several tight situations and gets a new boyfriend. She also loses her temper a lot. This makes her a feisty character with a strong moral compass.

A good read with the city of Chicago the setting. I also enjoyed a story pre cell phones and where faxes were the height of sophistication.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This might just be one V. I. Warshawski novel too many for me. There's nothing specifically wrong with the books, it's more that they are all essentially the same story, so reading it seven times is perhaps one time (or more) more than can maintain interest. It doesn't help that this book is significantly longer than preceding books in the series but not in a way that makes it more interesting to read, unfortunately. My original intention was to read all the books, but I think now that this could be the point to stop.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vic is hard on cars in this one. Hers gets rammed while her friend Lottie is driving it. Then Lottie is beaten up in a case of mistaken identity. Their friendship might never recover. Then the car her mechanic loans her is destroyed in another series of collisions with trucks. Just the usual corruption and greed in Chi- town but this time her ex-husband is involved. Vic gets involved in her neighborhood with dogs and a crazy spinster who’s been victimized as well as other seniors- and there’s a link to the case she’s investigating. Mr. Contreras is actively involved and even goes on a caper or two with her. Vic might be a guardian angel for the spinster but Mr. Contreras is the true guardian.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Vic Warshawski and agree with her friends who worry about the dangerous situations she gets herself into. I don’t enjoy the ‘Superwoman’ scenes where a gang of ruffians beat her up or try to kill her so I just scroll through those pages. I like following her solve the mystery and I admire the care and love she shows for her friends and clients. And her sense of justice that isn’t always aligned with the rule of law.
It doesn’t bother me reading books out of order. It’s fun to find out the backstories. In this book it was about her dogs Peppy and Mitch.
Published in 1991 there are dated references like looking for a phone booth that I find amusing.

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guardian Angel by Sara Paretsky is the 7th book in the V.I. Warshawski Mystery series. Private investigator V.I. Warshawski is hired by her neighbour Mr. Contreras to look for his old work colleague when he disappears and then is found dead, leading to V.I investigating union fraud. I enjoyed this book very much. There is a lot going on with plenty of action and entertainment including Pepy giving birth. I love that V.I.is so caring, always ready to help and to stand up for her beliefs, and the way she manages to get through any situation.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have now finished reading all the early V I books and each one is better than the last. Now that I have read entire series I look forward to the next installment in a few years. I just hope- in the present- that as Vic nears retirement age that she finds someone to pass the torch to and still have an active role behind the scenes because I would miss her if she ever disappeared completely.

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 20th book that I have read by Sara Paretsky and it was a great as the others. I highly recommend this series to lovers of strong women characters and mysteries.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I enjoy reading about V.I. Warshawski gallivanting about Chicago? Indeed I did.
Am I appreciative of Paretsky as a feminist and as a significant mystery writer? I sure am.
Did in fact this book succeed without any tiresome plot contrivance? It did.
But ooof Sara. In 1991, 1992... writing this and using that awful slur...having your white characters use that awful slur...even to show that they are ignorant or set in their ways and to show how segregated Chicago is and to show the racism all around an interracial relationship JUST NO. And you knew this in 1991, '92. Come on.

Also it didn't matter how many times she described it. I will never really truly picture the layout of Diamond Head, so...

[Helen Lisbonne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hacía muchos años que no leía un libro tan malo y poco interesante como este. En serio, se me ha hecho una bola increíble, pensando en que en algún momento sucedería algo. El personaje es soso, la trama (si hay alguna) aburrida, se pierde en detalles y personajes que no aportan absolutamente nada, como si quieres alargar el libro por alargar pero lo que consigue es que quieras dejarlo a la mitad. Hubo un momento de esperanza y fue cuando sucede lo de los perros de la vecina, ahí pensé: uy aquí se va a esconder algo importante. Pero no. Nada. 516 páginas totalmente desaprovechadas. Me sabe mal hacer una reseña así de negativa pero es que no hay por donde cogerlo.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A faithful reader of the VI Warshawski series, I somehow missed this, #7, along the way. In typical VI fashion, she manages to get herself involved in a couple of complicated investigations helping out some of her neighbors. Her friend and downstairs elderly neighbor, Mr. Contreras hires her to help locate an old friend of his who’s gone missing. Additionally, an elderly woman on her block, has a fall, is hospitalized and falls victim to a couple of unscrupulous neighbors who step in to take over her guardianship. Before she knows it, VI is caught up in a case of corporate corruption and greed that puts her and those close to her in danger. A fast-paced, and engaging read and a worthy installment in this excellent series.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vic takes a case from her neighbor Mr. Contreras. This case has tentacles that twist into a number of different areas of Chicago. She gets herself in numerous pickles as usual. She is a smart, strong woman that will at times show cracks to her tough exterior. It makes her seem more real, which is probably why enjoy reading about her. I will be starting the next book soon, I am really enjoying this series.

[Rbucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books are all very similar in the plot line, and maybe that’s why I really like them. What’s different about each book is the complicatedness of the plot. Make sense? How she comes up with mystery that needs to be solved and all the different angles that lead into them is amazing.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love V.I. but I really found this one difficult to get into. I started and stopped so many times until I had to force myself to finish. The story, at its core, is interesting but truly this was too long.

[Jjean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read as a "stand alone" and found it interesting - no problem following the story - private detective V. I. Warshawski starts with a simple investigation that turns into my twist & turns - held my interest to the end.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always her books are page-turners. Loved this one.

[Sunhawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 30 years (the book was published in 1992) not much has changed: gentrification dishonors elders, corporate greed abuses workers, the police are by turns neighborly and arrogant. Warshawski's transits of Chicago would undoubtedly be even more interesting to Chicagoans, but I have always been fascinated by the second city, and this book, and Paretsky's books, open a double window -- into a past much like the present in a place unlike anywhere I've ever lived.

[Aricia Gavriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s another of those “hmm” moments … and I’m getting so many of them lately -- have only really enjoyed, unreservedly, one book in the last few months. I’d expected to love Guardian Angel, because it’s the sixth V.I. Warshawski novel I’ve read, and I loved the others, placing them in the four and five star category. So, what went askew with this one? I find myself wondering what mindspace Sara Paretsky was in when she wrote this one.

I got to like V.I. in the BBC Radio dramatization of Killing Orders (with Kathleen Turner and Martin Shaw, whom I adored at the time, so I listened in, on spec). Then I watched the Kathleen Turner movie, and was more or less hooked … read the first bunch of books and was sold on V.I., even if I don’t really care for Chicago as depicted here any more than I like the look of it in Due South. I think you have to be native to the place to love it … it’s way too much city for me. But ―

This is the first V.I.W. book in which Vic spends an inordinate amount of time, uh, well, bungling. She makes so many errors -- procedural, tactical, legal, personal -- that it’s a wonder she survives. She shouldn’t have. She’s always had a smart mouth, but in this book she’s shooting it off so often, so waspishly, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be her friend, or assisting her.

Also, I have a problem with the book’s logistics. Plot development here relies heavily on flimsy connections. If the case she builds ever goes into court, I should think a thousand-buck-an-hour lawyer would utterly destroy it. Looking back over the novel, V.I. is too often overconfident, reckless, thoughtless, irresponsible, inconsiderate … inept, clumsy, even incompetent, and I *shudder* to write that, because Mizz W used to be the epitome of stealth, economic efficiency and smart-aleckiness (yes, I know there’s no such word).

Vic is 39 in this book, and -- sorry, guys -- the way Paretsky writes her, she’s showing every sign of early stage menopause! Speaking as a veteran of same, I recognize the scatterbrain, the inability to concentrate on details and predict consequences, as surely as I know the fatigue, pain levels, and general “flusteredness” that beset V.I. throughout.

I hardly think menopause is the point of what’s going on in the book (!) but I’m clueless as to why Paretsky would write the character this way, much less hang a long story on such flimsy wires. It’s not a “bad book” as such, but it’s far from the rewarding experience I’d hoped for.

Still, I finished it out, and remembering the novel’s good points I have to say three stars. It makes statements about racial equality, and the rights of the elderly to be respected and treated fairly; it paints a very vivid portrait of a city and a time -- c. 1990 -- that are worlds apart from where I am, and therefore intriguing, which is always a plus. It has some characters you genuinely like (Mr. Contreras is irresistible), and it has … dogs. [grins, chuckles] It also encapsulates a time … before mobile phones, omnipresent video surveillance, CCTV, drones and all the rest, that would make 90% of Vic’s shenanigans utterly impossible today. This in itself makes it a “historical,” adding to its interest.

What do I take away from this? Well -- Chicago is another planet! 1990 is another dimension. And American corporate law is just plain … bizarre.

Can’t give Guardian Angel four stars, but I will give it three. It’s probably more readable for people who haven’t read the earlier books and therefore come to it with certain expectations.

[Nick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been going through Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski novels in order and have reached No. 7. They follow a format, which, I suppose, brings a certain comfort. As usual, in Guardian Angel Warshawski finds herself facing corruption in high places. It begins the way the previous Warshawski books did: there are a series of seemingly inconsequential occurrences, but, because we know we are reading a detective novel, we look for the mysteries. In the first few chapters the dog Warshawski shares with her neighbour Mr Contreras, has pups; Mr Contreras has an old friend staying, now a rundown alcoholic, who is bragging that he is onto money, but then goes missing…a mystery; a neighbour with unruly dogs is hospitalised and another neighbour, an unpleasantly pushy lawyer, seizes legal control of the woman’s interests – what’s he up to?; Warshawski goes to a charity concert with her friends Dr Lotty Herschel and Max Loewenthal and they are having an argument about Lotty’s assistant who is leaving – is there a mystery here?; at the concert Warshawski bumps into her ex-husband who is with his wife and father-in-law…there is no mystery, but will it tie in?; a little later we find that the unpleasant lawyer works for the same law firm as Warshawski’s ex – coincidence or mystery? On Mr Contreras’s urging, Warshawski investigates the disappearance of his missing friend. And annoyed by the behaviour of the unpleasant neighbour, she begins to sniff around, trying to find out what is going on. And, of course, everything does begin to come together…and the usual sort of things happen. The corrupt and powerful people tend to be unpleasant, but it doesn’t feel as though power corrupts, rather that the already corrupt gain positions of power. (Although Warshawski’s ex-husband might be an exception to this – although he seems more of a dupe than an evil actor.) Each of the Warshawski books is a little longer than the previous one and they start very leisurely. Mysteries are set up, but they are held together by a lot of mundane events: a dog has pups, Warshawski goes to a concert with some friends, etc, as well as the usual things she does: go for a run, has meals where we are told what she is eating. If this works it is because we are already involved with the character, we like her company – if you don’t warm to Warshawski I think the books would fall flat and the beginning might be very slow.

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the 4th V.I. Warshawsky book I have read, and I find the protagonist less and less appealing with each novel I read. Most authors get better and better as they write. Not this one. Her novels get longer and longer, but not better and better. There are so many pointless actions and plot twists in the story that I am convinced they are nothing more than "padding" to increase the page count. Her side trip to Atlanta is a case in point.

Nobody could really be so stupid as this private investigator who has the habit of acting without thinking but, miraculously, not getting killed. She stumbles and fumbles through the story doing crazy and nonsensical things like leaving her gun at home, not checking to make sure her car is not staked out, not obtaining a computer to do her own data searches, lipping off to gangsters, believing that her gun and key ring would be immediately rusted after being submerged in the Chicago Sanitary Canal, letting her ex-husband get away with shady and unethical legal activities, etc., etc. She apparently has received no training in the use of her licensed gun, and she apparently never travels to a shooting range to practice with it. She refers to magazines as clips, and sometimes as cartridges. She wears a shoulder holster even when the weather is too warm to wear adequate clothing to keep it concealed.

Her bumbling and stumbling conjured up images of a Roomba vacuum cleaner bouncing its way through a room, striking walls and obstacles, only to turn and keep going in a different direction, with no apparent pattern. There isn't a brain in this woman's head. A private investigator should have some smarts, but not this one. Like a blind squirrel, she occasionally finds an acorn, but it is purely by accident that she does so.

The editing is better in this book than the one before it, but the characters are thinly developed and the dialog is not credible. If you like a good detective novel, this isn't it. She clearly has not done adequate research on some important aspects of the story, including the gun that she sometimes carries, and sometimes leaves in her apartment. Skip this one. The ending is anticlimactic, loose ends are left dangling and we are left wondering what ultimately happened to the bad guys. Not recommended.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the seventh book in the Warshawski series and was published in 1992. I noticed there were no cell phones, Vic was always looking for a pay phone, and I also noted she was using an Olivetti typewriter. Vic did say in the story she needed to learn how to use a computer and obtain one, she said this during a break-in, while trying to figure out how to get into the companies computer for information.

In this story Mr. Contaras, an elderly neighbor of V. I. Warshawski, has an alcoholic friend Mitch Kruger. They both retired from Diamond Head Machine Company at the same time approximately 12 years ago. Kruger bragged he is going to be rich from Diamond Head but then he is then found dead in a sanitary canal. A neighbor down the street Mrs. Frizell was found to have traded her CD investment for junk bonds in Diamond Head. Vic is on the case with numerous threatening confrontations, middle of the night file searches, car chases and crashes, another murder, a nasty beating of her friend Dr. Lotty Hershel and the appearance in the case of Vic’s ex-husband. We have a scandal of one of Chicago oldest industrial families, union fraud, and a politically connected bank. Suspense rarely flags in a Paretsky novel.

I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. Susan Ericksen does a great job of portraying the flippant, mean mouth style of Warshawski. Some of the other readers in this series could not pull it off as well as Ericksen. Kathy Bates was the other reader than did a good job with Warshawski. If you enjoy the Paretsky series you will enjoy this book. Even though each book stands alone I do wish I had read this series in order so I could see the development of the various characters.

[Dorothy Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always loved the V.I. Warshawski character created by Sara Paretsky. Aside from getting the bad guys (always does in the end), she is self deprecating and has a good sense of humor. Makes for fun reading. In this caper, V.I. is following two different cases that in a way are interrelated. One has to do with an elderly woman who falls in her home and is hospitalized--resulting in neighbors having her dogs put to sleep and attempting to gain control of her life. The second case has to do with the death of an elderly man who has fallen into a canal--or been pushed--and is dragged out dead. V.I. has a complex path to follow to right the wrongs that have been committed in these situations and she is in grave danger of becoming another victim while she does her investigating. Published in 1992, the story has a leisurely pace, but it's fun nevertheless. Comments about Donald Trump appear early in the book and seem very timely, as do her descriptions in another chapter of a group of older men who frequent a local bar where women aren't welcomed. This one isn't for me as intense and compelling as some whodunits but very enjoyable in retrospect.

[Kathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am always surprised at how many mistakes V.I. Warshawski makes before eventually stumbling into the solution of a case, and Guardian Angel continues the pattern. I like Vic and enjoy her evolving relationships with neighbors and friends. So, I liked this book well enough to read some more of Paretsky's books, but I will read them more for the "human interest" angle than for the mysteries.