Ghost Country
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Paretsky ventures into new territory
REVIEW BY CYNTHIA RIGGS "The sacred and the dispossessed meeting on the streets," is the way Sara Paretsky describes her vision of Ghost Country. Paretsky enthusiasts who look forward to each V.I. Warshawski mystery will find a different sort of book here, but one that will not disappoint. When I realized Ghost Country was about homeless women on the streets of Chicago, I wasn't sure I wanted a dose of sociology for bedside reading. But from the first page, I was hooked -- solidly, for all 386 pages of excitement, wit, violence, romance, and pathos. The action centers on an underground garage wall at an elegant Chicago hotel. A homeless woman has set up a shrine beside a crack in a wall that she believes seeps the blood of the Virgin Mary. Other homeless women join her. The hotel is in a quandary. They can't afford the publicity of ousting women who may, just possibly, be practicing their religion; yet hotel guests are complaining. Hotel lawyer Harriet Stonds goes underground to investigate and is shocked by her discovery. Other women, from all walks of life, are soon drawn to the site. A has-been opera singer joins the homeless women in her silk designer suit, somewhat soiled by now, and Italian heels. Mara Stonds, Harriet's sister and illegitimate granddaughter of eminent neurosurgeon Dr. Abraham Stonds, ends up at the wall, too. (Mara means "for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.") A mysterious woman also appears -- changing forever the lives she touches. No one quite knows how to handle these women; the community is at once fascinated and threatened by them. They are buffeted about by do-gooders at a shelter, church officials, mental health authorities, Dr. Stonds's hospital, and the police. The women's powerlessness is frightening and real, and the twists and turns of Ghost Country entertaining and thought provoking. Meet the Author
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Sara Paretsky lives in Chicago with her husband and their golden retriever, Cardhu. She is the author of eight V.I. Warshawski novels, a short story collection, and the editor of A Woman's Eye and Women on the Case.
Cynthia Riggs is a freelance writer on Martha's Vineyard, where she runs a B&B for poets and writers.
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