- Hardcover: 826 pages
- Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd; 1 edition (1 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0739420453
- ISBN-13: 978-0739420454
- ASIN: 0241141605
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,275,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Age and experience has not withered VI Warshawski. In Sara Paretsky's latest tale, Total Recall, the uncompromising and wildly unconventional private investigator chases leads and suspects around Chicago "like a pinball, careening around the city", despite the fact that she is now positively the wrong side of 40. Paretsky's heroine is called in to investigate a seemingly simple case of insurance fraud (one of her specialities), when things get rather more complicated. At a conference on Christian-Jewish relations, the media is attracted by two very different stories: while protesters outside call for the recovery of Holocaust assets from insurance companies in denial, inside, a middle-aged Jewish man--helped by a recovered-memory therapist--recalls a childhood devastated by Nazis.
Warshawski soon becomes involved in both stories. As her journalist boyfriend prepares for a trip to Afghanistan to investigate the dismal human rights record of the Taliban (a timely, if not prescient, angle from Paretsky), a friend of his staying from New York decides to embark on a book on recovered memory, inspired by a TV special on the therapist and her star client. Hired by the author to help check out the duo's authenticity, VI finds herself on a collision course between the past and the present and between her professional life and her close friendship with a group of Jewish friends. One of these, the spiky surgeon Lotty Herschel (a regular Warshawski character), is deeply disturbed to find her own past may be linked in some way to that of the troubled client.
With her sharp wit, cynicism and daredevil approach to her job, Warshawski is as annoyingly loveable as ever. There are enough twists and turns to this, her latest outing, to offer a challenging read to die-hard fans and newcomers alike. Irritatingly, however, Paretsky leaves some major strands of her story untied, leaving you wondering and, as ever, waiting anxiously for the next VI Warshawski adventure. --Carey Green
The New York Times Book Review
Total Recall is written with the stylistic verve and intellectual energy of a writer just coming into her own.
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First Sentence
They wouldn't even start the funeral service. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
They wouldn't even start the funeral service. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There isn't a private investigator in the whole of contemporary fiction as strong or as angry as V.I.Warshawski. From her brilliant entry into crimewriting with "Indemnity Only", Sara Paretsky's interest in corrupt dealings with finance & insurance, makes her an expert in the fascinating study of following money trails through account books. "Total Recall" reveals the background to Dr Lotty Herschell's escape from Europe, while V.I. investigates a man using a name Lottie remembers from her past, but she refuses to identify it. He insists he is related to her friend Max, but refuses to reveal his real name. V.I.'s exasperation with clues that lead nowhere, a local blue-collar family cheated of death insurance, apparently connected to banks in Switzerland, where protesters in Chicago are calling for recovery of holocaust assets. The plot is exacerbated by a recovered-memory therapist who insists the imposter is who he claims. Lotty crumbles slowly under the pressure of her past, while V.I. drives around Chicago piecing together a mosaic of information from deaths & lies & misplaced corporate loyalty. As always, Warshawski is driven forward mostly by impatience but also her sense of honour & determination to keep her word, solve the mysteries & put everything right. There is nobody anywhere as exciting or as ethically bolshie as V.I. There isn't a shred sanctimony in Paretsky's books, but each is written with witty humour & a strong social conscience.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A moving and also winning story, which shows Sarah Paretsky at her best, with VI batting for her oldest and most long-suffering friend.
The story is unusual in having long flash-back scenes over many years which effectively show the effect of suffering on VI's friend. This helps to inform the current day storylines which demonstrate how difficult "Total Recall" can be.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Good book, one of SP's best I feel. I enjoyed delving deeper into the life of Lotty, even though I guessed what had happened to her about a 1/4 of the way through the book. I really did enjoy it, however one small thing without giving too much away the end disapointed me as there wasn't really closure on one of the characters in the book. Is he going to be in the next one?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Vintage VI
VI's investigation into a dodgy life assurance claim leads her to unearth long-buried secrets from the Second World War, and culminates in painful revelations from her closest... Read more
Published 9 months ago by JoTownhead
okay
Whilst the story is entertaining and well told it's not exactly hihghly original and becomes predicatble pretty soon. Read more
Published on 1 Aug 2008 by TKr
Difficult
Having read every other VI book I waited desperately for this to be released, however I was incredibly disappointed. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2007 by S. Bradley
Difficult
I've read and re-read all the VI novels and this has got to be my least favourite. It is difficult to stay focused on and remember all the characters as there are two stories going... Read more
Published on 25 Aug 2006 by S. Bradley
Memory Fragments Glazed into a Colorful Plot Window!
I would have graded this book at 3.5 stars, if I could, so I rounded to the even number above as my math teachers always taught me to do. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Memory Fragments Glazed into a Colorful Plot Window!
I would have graded this book at 3.5 stars, if I could, so I rounded to the even number above as my math teachers always taught me to do. Read more
Published on 6 May 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Not Paretsky's best
Sara Paretsky is one of my favorite authors and with Hard Time she's surpassed herself. I was disappointed with Total Recall even if it is a good book. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2002
Ultimately disappointing
The book started promisingly, as as new reader of Sara Paretsky I was suitably impressed and became ingrossed in the intriuging and very topical plot. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2001
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