By Natasha Beck

Prolific author Sara Paretsky brings her fearless private invesitagor V. I. Warshawski home to South Chicago, a place she wanted to forever leave far behind with its limited options for a young woman from a working class background. A basketball scholarship — as well as excellent test scores — brought her to the prestigious University of Chicago.

Fire Sale Sara Paretsky Hardcover $25.95, 416 Pages Paperback: $9.99 Publisher: Putnam Adult June 28, 2005 ISBN: 0399152792

Steel was the main industry of the South Chicago of her youth. Family-wage jobs with good benefits were plentiful, at least for the men, thanks to previous unionization efforts. In 2005, the steel mills and good jobs are gone, as is the sense of tight-knit community. Warshawski meets up with some of her old high school classmates who didn’t get college educations and are working for a multinational corporation, By-Smart, for mediocre salaries and diminishing benefits and job security. At first this corporation seems to be a disguised version of Wal-Mart, but as the latter is mentioned as a competitor, it seems to be an amalgam of PayLess, Buy Mart, and Wal-Mart.

A plea from her high school basketball coach, who’s undergoing chemotherapy, brings Warshawski back to the old ‘hood. She reluctantly agrees to take the volunteer position of interim girls’ basketball coach. She finds Bertha Palmer High School greatly changed. Funding for extra-curricular activities has been drastically cut and the janitorial services are minimal. Some of the young women on the team are gang members, other belong to a fundamentalist church, setting up frequent fights between the two factions. The team’s top player has dropped out due to becoming a single mother. There aren’t enough basketballs, the girls’ locker room has mold growing in corners and the gym is filthy.

An ordinary person would take one look at the situation and run, but not Victoria Ipighenia Warshawski, who’s used to taking on huge challenges. She’s a smart, sassy, feisty, soft-boiled, socially-conscious, proudly feminist detective working odd and dangerous hours in a male-dominated profession. Now in her mid-40s, she’s starting to miss the days when she could stay out all night working on a case and get by on only a few hours’ sleep. But she still eats on the fly, and responds to crises big and small — frequently risking life and limb. Her long-time neighbor and surrogate father Mr. Contreras, a World War II veteran, sometimes joins her on investigations. Mostly he runs interference, visits her in the hospital, and takes care of her two dogs. And sometimes he treats her to some good Italian home cooking, knowing Warshawski doesn’t regularly grocery shop due to her chaotic schedule. Many times she solves crimes before the police do, to her delight and their consternation.

Now she has a significant other to comfort her when she returns from the latest battle or to take her home from the emergency room. Morrell, who goes by his surname, is an independent journalist introduced in the previous mystery, Black List. Now he needs caretaking as well, having returned from his research trip to Afghanistan with major injuries, some permanent. Although they’ve discussed living together, Warshawski doesn’t think she can put up with Morrell’s frequent guests, usually other journalists and editors.

Always weaving in social justice themes, Paretsky takes on the religious right and class issues in addition to multinational corporations in this compelling read. Several basketball players belong to an evangelical church, which preaches abstinence before marriage and urges its young people to take virginity pledges. Pastor Andres leads this mostly-Latino congregation, moonlighting as an electrician in the neighborhood. He is economically progressive, concerned with working conditions and outsourcing.

Against her better judgment, Warshawski begins to take an interest in her team members’ personal lives. While the school puts strict limits on what can be covered in sex education, Warshawski fills in some of the gaps informally, and most of all tries to instill pride and self-worth in the young women. Josie and Julia are two sisters she alternately mentors and interrogates. Julia is the top player who now spends her days watching telenovelas and ignoring her toddler Maria Ines. The father, several years her senior, takes no interest in or responsibility for his daughter; later he is implicated in some major crimes, although the cops are reluctant to pursue a thorough investigation. After initially warning Warshawski to “stay off my turf,” old friend and Police Commander Rawlings finally admits the force lacks the personnel to do a good job protecting the now-neglected South Side. Warshawski’s investigative skills are sorely needed, though Rawlings won’t say so directly.
To complicate matters, a Romeo and Juliet-style romance is blooming between Josie and Billy, grandson of the By-Smart patriarch, an irascible octogenarian who insists on a role in running the family empire. Billy (nicknamed Billy the Kid) at 19 is idealistic but very sheltered, so he’s taking a year off between high school and college to gain some real-world experience in the family business. He gets a different experience than his relatives had hoped for: he develops sympathy for the workers and starts attending Pastor Andre’s congregation, where he meets Josie. Billy considers the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated by the government in El Salvador for defending the poor, as one of his heroes.

Warshawshi continues to have flashbacks to her high school years as she coaches at her old school. A long-time grudge from those years haunts her as she discovers two old enemies, Sandra and “Romeo” Czernin, are the parents of good basketball player April. Sandra continually berates and blames our heroine for the many problems plaguing her and her family. These diatribes do get rather tedious, however, and some judicious editing is needed. I also wonder why the no-nonsense Warshawski puts up with Sandra’s escalating verbal abuse, and why Warshawski doesn’t refer Sandra for anger management classes and/or counseling. In any event, this is the fast-paced page-turner’s only weakness.

Fire Sale might reach mystery fans who aren’t aware of the deep connections between the religious right and corporations similar to the Walton family’s Wal-Mart empire. Progressives and feminists will enjoy this book as well for the ways Warshawski tackles huge issues while maintaining her compassion and principles. Private investigators often become cynical and suspicious, but Warshawski has managed to avoid both, while remaining human, sometimes humorous, and very real.

Natasha Beck is a local activist and teacher. She would like to thank the Salmon St. Wednesday night writing group for support.