Customer Reviews

Tunnel Vision (V.I. Warshawski Novels)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've read many reviews who fault Paretsky on the believability of this book - but I say who cares? Vic Warshawski isn't meant to be realistic (a real PI would never be as interesting!) Vic is the kind of character everyone can relate to - she's fast and tough, but thoughtful and very kind hearted. Her escapades in Tunnel Vision - including a run in with a rather large aeroplane and a fight with a Romanian muscle mountain - are engaging, exciting and fabulous to imagine. Paretsky is one of the very best crime/thriller writers around today! If this is the first Paretsky you have read - the others are a must!!!

Sara Paretsky's character, V.I. Warshawski, is a tough-talking; tender-hearted; justice-seeking; single-minded woman who is approaching middle-age and beginning to feel it. I can really identify with the "beginning to feel it" part, which is part of the reason I find her so engaging. Her tactics may not always be perfect, but her heart's always in the right place!

In Tunnel Vision, once again, she goes after the truth taking her friends, her dogs, her police contacts, and her neighbor/protector, Mr. Contreras along with her. She discovers the truth, too, but only after putting herself and her closest personal relationships at great risk.

I don't think she's meant to be believable 100% of the time, after all this is fiction. V.I.'s just supposed to be cool. And she is.

Sara Paretsky has packed a huge amount into a single novel, probably enough for 4 or 5 thriller movies. I've had the same sense of surprise with another of the V.I. Warshawsky novels -- after 30 or 40 pages to be only that far into it. The behaviour of many if not most of the men in this book is implausibly stupid, serving perhaps as an inexcusable excuse to examine abuse and inhumanity between and among the sexes. V.I.'s tendency to argue unproductively with most of the other characters in the novel is annoying at times, too, but there's always a lot going on, continuous plot motion, and plenty to think about. And it's nice to have a PI who doesn't pull out a gun and threaten to blow the bad guy's head off if he doesn't come across with the information. This is a slow read and a good one.

I've read every Paretsky / Warshawski book but the last (as we speak), but I'm disappointed at the pretty unbelievable action in this one. I often feel like our author and our leading lady have the same problem as Robin Cook sometimes -- when the characters start moving around and breaking into places and being mugged, being tailed, etc. etc., it just gets a little tough to believe. I believe if V.I. stayed put a little more and did a little more cerebral work and a little less hotdogging 'round Chicago, we'd both be happer.

I'm still a fan, but I'd rather see fewer and more well developed characters, a somewhat less complicated yet compelling plot, and surely less social commentary. Letting some reasonable actions speak for themselves is better than rubbing our faces in it. Would like to see Paretsky stop reading Grisham and get back to her earlier self!

This is my first exposure to Sarah Paretsky. I thought that Tunnel Vision was a first rate mystery. The details in the underground scenes were fantastic. I felt like I was really there, just steps behind the flood. It was so vivid it was terrifying. I can see those chicago tunnels yet! Sarah Paretsky has a good head for technical detail, good as Crichton et. al., hell, good as any man, writer or otherwise. This is by no means a gentile "ladies tea party mystery. "V.I. Warshawsky is tough yet desireable, one cool lady detective. Highly recommended.

This is one of the author's earlier efforts and this has both positive and negative aspects. In some senses it is fresher than later works. However, it is also rougher. Both the plot line and the characters were a bit crude. VI seemed at times like a cross between an idiot a jerk and a neurotic. The reasons for this are explained somewhat by revelations toward the end of the book, but I found myself less sympathetic toward her than I have in the past. This novel was written before I became a fan, and if I had read it first, I am not sure I would have become enthused with Paretsky's work

This was my first Paretsky book. It seems like an amalgam of suspense, western shoot-em-up, & fantasy to me. It's very long & the author packs so many different things into it (tons of action, lots of emotion, social ills, love interest, etc.) that she doesn't do most of them justice. There's little character development--most of them are paper-thin & the heroine (Vic I. Warshawski) is difficult to believe. Yes, this is fiction, but the odds are she wouldn't last very long (not even through this book) in real life. No wonder she alienates so many of the other characters. In a way, she's quite child-like--she's right, everybody else is wrong, no one else has any rights, & she wants what she wants when she wants it. I didn't find her very likable, let alone realistic.

Some of the scenes were, however, well done, there is some fun in the book, & the author provides some interesting turns of phrase: "People were tossing bright-painted eggs in the air to keep me from looking at the juggler" & "It's watching you plunge ahead without regard for anything or anyone except your own private version of justice." The latter is from her cop boyfriend. She's very tough on him too. I thought Supergirl was nicer. Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone does some wild things too but doesn't come close to Warshawski. Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone has a lot of personal issues, but they seem more realistic, and (of course) Agatha Christie's Miss Marple is far more cerebral--generally providing sufficient clues for the reader to (with considerable difficulty) figure out the mystery. Prior reviewers seem mixed on how this novel compares to other Paretsky's, so maybe I'll try a different one. But in this one, IMHO, Warshawski doesn't compare favorably with other mystery heroines.

Paretsky gives a good idea what it is like to serve on a not-for-profit board, and her plot, which requires you to believe that perps of abuse are charming even to hardened police and teachers, is depressingly authentic. Loved Vic's evolving relationship with Mr. Contreras and the upbeat resolution, and loved how turning 40 changes how she approaches her work. Even loved the puppy-love from a boy in his 20s who sooo conveniently is a hacker.

Don't love Conrad. Vic clearly loves him, and her lines to him are tender and sincere. He gets lines such as, "Did I leave any beer here?" and he kvetches over having to eat healthfully, something about which Vic has had constant concern. I want to swoon over the protaganist's lover the same as she does, and he is just...eh. A case could be made that with their one-parent, hardscrabble beginnings they have something in common, but all he does is talk down to her, and they share no interests. Conrad is not taking Vic to either a baseball game or the symphony anytime soon. And he breaks up with her over Vic's putting herself above the law, which is exactly what he is doing when he lands in the hospital. When reading his breakup speech, I was relieved, and completely baffled that in the next paragraph Vic was crying over him.

Love the way the character of Mary Louise Neely evolved, and that there were tiny hints at this in earlier books. Can't wait to see more of Mary Louise, and Conrad, you can go, now.

Shannon Engemann wouldn't be a bad reader if she would take the trouble to look up words she doesn't know how to pronounce. There were so many mispronunciations in this reading it was a constant annoyance. My favorite was "Nikes" (as in shoes) as if it rhymed with "hikes." Paretsky's work deserves better treatment!

Truly, this is one of the very worst audiobooks to which I've subjected myself. First of all, the so-called "author" can't settle on one actual plot, probably because none of them are at all compelling. Secondly, the ancillary characters are little more than ridiculously trite representations of social mores about which the "author" wants to complain. Warshawski becomes little more than a mule for a bunch of completely tedious canned social commentary. Nothing happens for chapters on end, dumb little boring clues pile up and go nowhere, Warshawski tells yet another person off, whatever. Add to that the horrifying abuse of the English language, misused words and bad grammar to spare, and you have a disasterous literary experience that will astonish you for eons. Shockingly bad. Who is Paretsky sleeping with to get this piece of garbage published?

Narrated by Shannon Engemann, who hisses out as many words as possible per second and reads in a complete monotone, if you can call it reading. She might be the only narrator I've listened to that I've suspected might be, in fact, illiterate. Her routine mispronounciation of completely ordinary words finally made me scream and throw the cd like a frisbee across the room. What a stoop; who is Engemann sleeping with to get this job?

A disaster on every possible level. Avoid.