Brush Back, by Sara Paretsky

Brush Back by Sara Paretsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Live long enough, you're bound to have a person or two from the past you'd rather keep there. In Sara Paretsky's latest V.I. Warshawski mystery, Brush Back, that person is the difficult Stella Guzzo, a woman who spent twenty-five years in prison for the murder of her daughter, Annie.

When Frank Guzzo arrives at V.I.'s office with a favor to ask, Vic almost turns him down. Frank wants Vic's help in exonerating his mother, an angry woman who hated Vic's beloved parents - especially her mother, Gabriella - and who has recently gotten out of prison for the murder of her daughter. Against her better judgement, V.I. agrees to go back to the old neighborhood to ask questions.

Meanwhile, Vic also has company - Bernie, the daughter of one of her late cousin Boom-Boom's team mates, a likable and high-spirited teen who occasionally tags along while Vic checks out a few leads from Frank and Stella's past.

Before long, the questioning has Vic in trouble with several of the local corrupt politicos, some with ties to the Russian mob, as well as several of Chicago's gangs. The run-ins nearly cost Vic her life, as well as getting Bernie injured.

Will Vic get Stella exonerated? Will she manage to get Bernie back to her parents alive? How does Vic escape more gang and mob violence with her life? Will her latest love-interest, Jake, stick around? All these, and more, make this one of the best books in Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series - all of which are well-written nail-biting page-turners.

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