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Colson Whitehead’s debut novel seems to be about an obscure topic: elevator inspectors. His protagonist, Lila Mae Watson, is the first black female elevator inspector in 1950’s New York. She uses her intuition to repair the elevators. There is a rival school of elevator inspectors called Empiricists who physically inspect the elevators for safety. Watson’s confidence is shaken when an elevator crashes shortly after an inspection. The elevators’ guild is also having an election which pits the Intuitionists against the Empiricists. James Fulton, the founder of Intuitionism left behind a black box with instructions to create the perfect elevator. Watson is searching for this box. Whitehead uses the elevator inspector allegory to interweave race, spirituality, and humor into an inventive work.

Reviewed by Megan M., Main Library

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Rusty Sabich, Kindle County’s Deputy Prosecutor, has a secret. Sabich, who is married, had an affair with his colleague, Carolyn Polhemus and now she has been murdered. His boss, Chief Prosecutor Raymond Horgan, is facing a tough re-election and he wants a quick resolution to the case. He puts Sabich in charge of the murder investigation. After Horgan loses, Sabich is indicted and put on trial for Polhemus’s murder. In his debut novel, Turow, a practicing attorney, provides an insider’s view into the legal process. He also shares his characters’ thoughts and personal histories. Through his detailed storytelling, Turow shows that in law as in life, issues are not black or white, but muted shades of gray.

Reviewed by Megan M., Main Library

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Like Pekar's long-running autobiographical comic American Splendor, the concept is: he's an ordinary guy from Cleveland, working for the federal government as a file clerk, writing about his life. This graphic novel is more ambitious than the series: it's a unified autobiography, mainly covering Pekar's childhood and young adulthood. At first our narrator bails on one thing after another, so afraid of failure that he quits everything before he has a chance to fail. Pekar fearlessly shows himself, warts and all. And by the end he's mellowed a bit, made some successes and learned a lot about himself. He makes effective use of the device of talking directly to the reader, and Haspiel's gritty black and white illustrations suit the story well.

Reviewed by Mark S., University City Regional

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Meet V.I. "Vic" Warchawski, a tough-as-nails Chicago P.I. When her cousin, ex-hockey star Boom Boom Warchawski, drowns on a busy delivery dock, V.I. becomes suspicious of how he died. While investigating the cause of his death, she is drawn into the dark underbelly of the Great Lakes shipping industry. The story unfolds slowly and lulls you into a false sense of security, until the first attempt on Vic's life. After that it is a wild ride to the end with our heroine tirelessly putting the pieces of the case together, even in her dreams. Recommended for all hard-boiled detective fans.

Reviewed by Christie B., Independence Regional

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Events have evolved into this: private detective V.I. Warshawski is working for an under-aged client in the investigation of two murder cases. That is definitely the case as distressed, 14-young-old Jill Thayer asks Warshawski to step in to attempt to solve the mystery of the two recent and sudden deaths of her brother and father. Both have been shot and killed and V.I. is determined to see matters to the end as she gets a bum steer from an earlier client and later threats—including a beating—from a shady operator. And this all started with a standard missing person case. Sara Paretsky creates a memorable character in the smart-aleck Warshawski, whose street-smarts and dogged nature make her a good fit as a detective.

Reviewed by Lawrence T., South County Regional

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