{"id":94,"date":"2005-07-13T17:32:07","date_gmt":"2005-07-14T00:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=94"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:14:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T01:14:43","slug":"indemnity-only-and-deadlock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/94","title":{"rendered":"Indemnity Only and Deadlock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indemnity Only<\/em> (1982) and Deadlock<\/em> (1984) Sara Paretsky<\/a><\/p>\n

\"indemnity<\/a>\"\"I used to own the V.I. Warshawski series, but in a fit of pique–and shelf space squeeze–I sold them all. I recently decided that I wanted to give them another chance, which means that I needed to reread them, which means I had to find all the books again. Luckily, I’ve found most of them used.<\/p>\n

The first book, Indemnity Only<\/em>, is set in 1979, and in some ways it’s dated. V.I. Warshawski is constantly asserting her right as a woman to have any job she wants. Yes, in some places today this is still a problem, but it is no longer overt problem that it was at the time the book was written. In many ways the issues that women face are far more insidious, in that they are far more subtle. <\/p>\n

This leads to one of my problems with the book–something that Marion Zimmer Bradley brought up when she was editing Sword & Sorceress. Yes, woman may face challenges and sexist, but I can only read so many stories where overcoming those challenges is the focus of the story. Yes, sexism is a problem, but the story should be more than that. Not that this story focuses solely upon V.I.’s gender as a problem in her work, but it comes up. Frequently.<\/p>\n

The other issue is more a matter of taste–when I’m reading a mystery, I don’t want to read about the constant battles of sexism. They’re out there, I know about them, and I just don’t want to read about them.<\/p>\n

However, to be fair, although the issue of gender comes up frequently in these books, it isn’t the complete focus of the story, this is a mystery at heart, and it’s a good mystery. In searching for a lost woman, V.I. ends up searching for whoever killed the woman’s boyfriend. Good mystery, fast paced, quick read. So not bad.<\/p>\n

\"deadlock.jpg\"<\/a>\"\"Deadlock<\/i> is the second V.I. Warshawski book. V.I.’s cousin has died in an accident, however she beings to wonder if the accident is actually murder.<\/p>\n

There is far less emphasis up the idea of a woman doing a man’s work, and her biggest problem in this area now seems to come from a police officer who knew her as a child, however there was a bit of “why aren’t you at married and raising kids,” which I could also do without. <\/p>\n

As with Indemnity Only<\/i>, Sara Paretsky is pretty hostile to the wealthy. Not that I have any particular love for the too rich, but reading these books I begin to wonder whether everyone in Chicago with money is completely lacking in morals and virtue. For most of the people in this book are unpleasant in one way or another. <\/p>\n

However, the mystery was still pretty good, and the story moved quickly. These are not my favorite mysteries, but they’re not horrible either, so I’ll keep reading. At least for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indemnity Only (1982) and Deadlock (1984) Sara Paretsky I used to own the V.I. Warshawski series, but in a fit of pique–and shelf space squeeze–I sold them all. I recently decided that I wanted to give them another chance, which means that I needed to reread them, which means I had to find all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,291],"tags":[861],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mystery","category-paper","tag-sara-paretsky"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-1w","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":96,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/96","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":0},"title":"Blood Shot","author":"Michelle","date":"July 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Blood Shot (1988) Sara Paretsky V.I. Warshawski reluctantly heads back to the old neighborhood--her childhood next door neighbor wants her help in solving the mystery of her past. V.I.'s mother had befriended the single mother next door, and made V.I. take care of Caroline, the little girl. Now, as her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=randomreading-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0440204208","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/98","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":1},"title":"Burn Marks","author":"Michelle","date":"July 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Burn Marks (1990) Sara Paretsky V.I.'s aunt Elena shows up on her doorstop at 3 in the morning after escaping the fire that burned down the hotel where she was living. As an alcoholic deadbeat aunt is not the idea roomate, V.I. gives her 24 hours to find a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/95","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":2},"title":"Killing Orders","author":"Michelle","date":"July 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Killing Orders (1985) Sara Paretsky In Killing Orders V.I.'s bitter and unpleasant aunt asks her to look into a matter for her--securities have been forged at the church where Aunt Rosa works, and as everyone who had access to the safe is under suspicion, she is on leave from her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"killing orders.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.klishis.com\/Books\/images\/killing%20orders.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5330,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5330","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":3},"title":"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo","author":"Michelle","date":"July 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005\/2008) Stieg Larsson translated by Reg Keeland I read this the summer I broke my ankle. Because of that, much of my memory of it was fuzzy, both because I read a lot that summer and because I was taking a lot of pain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"The-Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/The-Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11019,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11019","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":4},"title":"Dreaming of You","author":"Michelle","date":"August 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Dreaming of You (1994) Lisa Kleypas Set in historical London some time after pistols but before trains There was so much I liked about this story, yet so much that I found problematic about it. Sara Fielding is the author of a famous novel about a fallen woman, and is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Dreaming-of-You.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3364,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3364","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":5},"title":"X-23","author":"Michelle","date":"December 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"So, yeah. I went to put away my new X-23 comics, and instead ended up rereading all the X-23 and NYX books. Oops! The stories written by Craig Kyle were still--far and away--my favorites. X-23: Innocence Lost (2006) Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Billy Tan, Jon Sibal X-23: Target X (2007)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}