Fire Sale, by Sara Paretsky

So, the question is, am I softening up, or is Paretsky? The question is relevant because normally when I finish a V.I. Warshawski book I am agitated and upset at the injustice and evil in the world. At the end of this one, I sort of just stopped. Like it was a 'regular' book. I'm wondering if I'm that jaded.

This book finds Vic on familiar ground, back at her own high school, coaching (for no pay) the girls' basketball team she used to belong to. The South Side of Chicago of her youth has changed. Many people are now living below the poverty line. Many of them are working long hours at a Walmart-type company called By-Smart. Against her will, she is drawn into the families of 'her girls'--two of whom are gangers, one is a mother, and most have no fathers. Eventually, she finds her self unwittingly working for (or against?) By-Smart itself and uncovering lots of shady and barely-legal business practices.

This is a sad book, not an angry book. It's sad that people have no good choices. It's sad that people make the worst possible choice so often. It's sad that rich people have no understanding of how horrible life is when you're poor, it's sad when people die and no one notices or cares.

Paretsky usually gets me mad enough to spit. With this book, I just felt despair and hopelessness. That's not a criticism, not by any means, just a very different flavor of emotion from the norm.