happy_hiker's review against another edition
2.0
What to say? This is a decent book but it took me a long time to finish - it wasn't something that kept me up at night reading or distracted me from work that needed to be done. I actually didn't remember completing the book, and was looking for it my house so I could take it back to the library. It took me a while to realize that I HAD finished it and had already returned it.
vkemp's review
4.0
Anni Koskinen became a private investigator after she blew the whistle on some bad cops in the Chicago PD. She is hired by a rape victim who identified the wrong man as her rapist and he is out of jail as a result. She is determined to find the right man and see him prosecuted for the crime. As Anni investigates, she uncovers the tracks of a serial rapist, who is still out there, committing his crime. His crimes are spread around different precincts, so no one has identified him and linked the clues. Meanwhile, an immigration issue rears its ugly head when ICE breaks into Anni's house looking for an undocumented immigrant who used to live there. Anni is horrified by the treatment of these immigrants. Anni is a great character with heart and compassion for everyone. Chicago is a character in this book, as it was in the first book, In the Wind. Recommended reading.
expendablemudge's review
4.0
Rating: 4* of five
This ARC came to me courtesy of the author.
I like mysteries and I am especially partial to the cozier ones. This is about the farthest thing from cozy that I can imagine, with its cast of damaged, frightened people hunkered down against the seemigly endless emotional and legal storms that batter them.
And I loved it. It's very satisfying to read "outside the box" when there's a reward like this at the end. Anni Koskinen is about the last person on earth I'd expect to enjoy spending time with, and yet I do. She's a tough woman, but she's not tough in the faux-male swaggering way that's so irksome in PI fiction by other woman authors. She's tough in a genuine way, meaning her strength is what makes her tough, her decisions about her life as a result of the events in it make her tough, and her complete inability to imagine giving up before the Universe is compelled, by sheer force of her will, to deliver justice makes her tough.
In the course of solvng a decades-old rape, Anni fights through some of her personal demons and makes her peace with some terribly painful memories. She's involved up to the hilt in righting a series of very unpleasant wrongs. She's even, for the first time in a long time, daring to think about her own happiness. It's compelling reading.
Fister's Chicagoland is not a place I want to live, but I'll visit once in a way through Anni Koskinen's eyes. Recommended to those who enjoy fast-paced puzzlers, those who have a stronger-than-ordinary drive to see the evildoers in life punished appropriately, and the noir community at large. *NOT* for the tender of sensibility or those unable to endure violence.
This ARC came to me courtesy of the author.
I like mysteries and I am especially partial to the cozier ones. This is about the farthest thing from cozy that I can imagine, with its cast of damaged, frightened people hunkered down against the seemigly endless emotional and legal storms that batter them.
And I loved it. It's very satisfying to read "outside the box" when there's a reward like this at the end. Anni Koskinen is about the last person on earth I'd expect to enjoy spending time with, and yet I do. She's a tough woman, but she's not tough in the faux-male swaggering way that's so irksome in PI fiction by other woman authors. She's tough in a genuine way, meaning her strength is what makes her tough, her decisions about her life as a result of the events in it make her tough, and her complete inability to imagine giving up before the Universe is compelled, by sheer force of her will, to deliver justice makes her tough.
In the course of solvng a decades-old rape, Anni fights through some of her personal demons and makes her peace with some terribly painful memories. She's involved up to the hilt in righting a series of very unpleasant wrongs. She's even, for the first time in a long time, daring to think about her own happiness. It's compelling reading.
Fister's Chicagoland is not a place I want to live, but I'll visit once in a way through Anni Koskinen's eyes. Recommended to those who enjoy fast-paced puzzlers, those who have a stronger-than-ordinary drive to see the evildoers in life punished appropriately, and the noir community at large. *NOT* for the tender of sensibility or those unable to endure violence.
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