A.I. summary:

Shell Game is the 19th novel in Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski series, published in 2018, where the Chicago P.I. investigates a murder case involving her friend Lotty Herschel’s nephew, Felix, who is framed for the crime. 

The plot intertwines with the disappearance of V.I.’s niece and involves a complex web of stolen antiquities, Russian mobsters, and a shadowy network of international criminals, forcing V.I. to confront powerful figures and navigate dangerous situations. 

Key aspects of the novel:

• Plot: V.I. must clear Felix’s name after he’s implicated in a murder, while also searching for her missing niece, leading her into a world of art theft and organized crime. 
• Themes: The book tackles timely and divisive issues, including immigration (ICE involvement with Felix), international crime, and the complexities of justice. 
• Reception: The novel received critical acclaim, winning the Sue Grafton Memorial Award and being named a Boston Globe Best Book of 2018. 

This was my 3rd Paretsky novel. They are weirdly rambling. She seems to suffer a lot of physical damage every novel.

Interesting. But I wouldn’t these books brilliant.

Thomas Perry is one entertaining author. Sadly, he died September 15, 2025 (aged 78).

Nightlife is his 2006 book.

Well written, as always. But there’s no real resolution in the battle of the ladies.

A detective’s murder investigation takes a perilous turn when she becomes the elusive serial killer’s next target …

When the cousin of Los Angeles underworld figure Hugo Poole is found shot to death in his home in Portland, Oregon, homicide detective Catherine Hobbes is determined to solve the case.

But her feelings, and the investigation, are complicated when Hugo simultaneously hires private detective Joe Pitt.

As Joe and Catherine form an uneasy alliance, the murder count rises. Following the evidence, Catherine finds herself in a deadly contest with a cunning female adversary capable of changing her appearance and identity at will. Catherine must use everything she knows, as a detective and as a woman, to stop a murderer who kills on impulse and with ease, and who becomes more efficient and elusive with each crime.

A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer (2008) is another of his great stories. In fact, the author considers this his best book.

A contemporary retelling of Dumas’s 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

Archer spent 2 years in Belmarsh Prison, featured in this book, for perjury and perverting the course of justice. He writes what he knows.

A pub fight results in a stabbing death.

Danny is wrongly blamed for the murder in a well-orchestrated plot by Spencer (a barrister) and his friends: a popular actor, a drug-addicted aristocrat, and a young estate agent.

Sentenced to 22 years in Belmarsh prison, Danny befriends 2 cellmates, Albert Crann, known as “Big Al,” and Sir Nicholas Moncrieff. 

How can Danny get out of prison? Clear his name? And bring justice to Spencer?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

For me, it’s the ending of the story that makes this a fantastic read.

The courtroom drama is a brilliant conclusion.

Sin City Treachery: An AJ Docker and Banshee Thriller is a light read — but engaging and entertaining.

“Doc” Docker is a medical professional. But the star of the show is his retired police dog, Banshee.

His sidekick Rick is another hilarious character.

Las Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world, hosts an F1 race, the largest sporting event in the city’s history and a prime target for terrorism.

With over a half million people descending on the strip for the event, a bomb detonates in a parking garage days before the race.

In the emergency room, Doc fights to save the lives of a pregnant doctor and her premature baby injured in the blast, spurring him to risk his own life to find justice for the victims.

He is joined by his girlfriend, Lana, a smart, ambitious reporter, his friend and colleague, Rick, and his trained ex police dog Banshee.

Their investigation takes them from a seedy bar to iconic landmarks around Las Vegas and crescendo on the night of the race when chaos reigns in the city.

Sin City Treachery

Excellent.

The Informant surprisingly finds Elizabeth Waring, now now high up in the Organized Crime Division of the Justice Department, visited by the professional killer (alias Michael Schaeffer) she’d been hunting for years.

 A Mafia hit team finally catches up with Schaeffer who had been in hiding. He knows they won’t stop coming and decides to take the fight to their door. 

He offers Waring information on the mafia, in order to get them off his back. So begins a new assault on organized crime and an uneasy alliance between opposite sides of the law. 

The Butcher’s Boy	(1982)	Description / Buy at Amazon
Sleeping Dogs	(1992)	Description / Buy at Amazon
The Informant	(2011)	Description / Buy at Amazon
Eddie’s Boy	(2020)	Description / Buy at Amazon

Good premise. But ultimately too complicated & confusing.

The 30th book in the excellent series is not one of the best. Some are calling it the worst.

Exit Strategy (2025) finds Reacher sitting in a Baltimore coffee shop. Spotting a conman taking advantage of two elderly customers, he quickly teaches a lesson. Returning the money.

THIS is the kind of story I want in these novels.

… Unfortunately it got worse.

On the way out of the coffee shop, a young man drops a note into Reacher’s pocket. That leads to a lengthy & often confusing, slow, and eventual confrontation with an  interesting villain. But the plot is too complex.

I assume the new books are mostly written by Andrew. And they are not as good.

An AJ Docker and Banshee Thriller.

Faulty Bloodline (2024) is 2nd in the series of books where former police dog, Banshee, is our favourite character.

Author Gary Gerlacher was a pediatric emergency physician. The emergency room situations in these books are based on real life

AJ Docker (Doc) and his guard dog, Banshee, move to a small town in the mountains for a slower-paced lifestyle.

Doc settles into the idyllic setting with a rewarding job and enriching colleagues, as well as with a romantic interest who leads him to contemplate marriage.

His new life seems perfect until he begins to uncover the town’s dirty secrets. A serial killer hunts in the woods, and dirty money flows throughout the town.

Read the AJ Docker and Banshee Thrillers in any order, or follow the series from the beginning:

1. Last Patient of the Night
2. Faulty Bloodline
3. Sin City Treachery
4. Deadly Equation
5. Terminal Exchanges – coming
6. The Phantom Files – coming March 2026

The second V. I. Warshawski book I’ve read bySara Paretsky.

Again, weird. Original.

First-person narrative from V.I.’s perspective, giving readers direct access to her thoughts and observations. Right or wrong.

I was interested enough to Google and come up with:

A Conversation With Sara Paretsky on the Writing Process (Killer Writers)

like a dog wrestling with a sprinkler, and the sprinkler is always winning

 I was lucky to be friends with P.D. James, who told me she outlined in so much detail that she would write the chapter she wanted to work on a given day. I wish I could do that. I would write so much faster and have so many more books out. I’d be like the Stephen King of private eye novels. …

I have an idea for a crime and characters who can set the story in motion. Then, the story ends up going down a dead-end alley, so I have to back up. Sometimes, the characters change roles. They become more or less prominent or even change whether they’re good or bad …

That makes sense now.

Overboard (2022) has no conventional plot that I could discern.

V.I. is — as usual — protecting Chicago’s weak and vulnerable without getting paid.

There are astonishingly well organized bad guys chasing V.I. — as usual — for reasons unclear.

I do like how they push issues of social and political justice. Paretsky makes clear that she hates Trump.

The Chicago setting is excellent. I love that city.

It’s unapologetically set during the pandemic lockdown.

I might keep reading these books. They are strangely compelling, even without a clear storyline.

WAY too long. It would have been excellent at half the length.

Intriguing plot.

Some good twists.

Ruth Ware has written many popular novels. Often often compared to that of Agatha Christie.

The Woman in Suite 11 (2025) is a direct sequel to The Woman in Cabin 10 which I haven’t read.

When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer.

Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus.

Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests.

When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.

What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?