The Lost Symbol and Hardball

I am still struggling with Dan Brown's 'The Lost Symbol' and am about ready to give up and return my copy to the library, wait for it in paperback and hope it reads better next summer at the pool. Maybe I will give it one more chance (the sign of a bad read for me is my never ending enthusiasm to find something, anything else to read). I've picked up started stopped and returned to this at least a dozen times.

But Sara Paretsky has returned with a big smash hit in her long running but rarely dull VI Warshawski (as VI's young cousin remembers to spell the family name....a warrior on a rickshaw riding a ski). Taut, tight, compelling a true home run I highly recommend 'Hardball'. A lot of empty spots in VI's past are filled in and maybe just maybe she's found a new man to help fill some of the empty spots in her personal life.

All the favorites are back...Lotty and Max, Mr. Contreras, the dogs, cameos from Bobby and Murray the familiar Chicago of VI. Solid mentions of Boom-Boom, her beloved mother and father as well as the appearance of a new cousin and her father's much younger and much more successful (at least in a worldly sense) brother Peter.

If you've read VI and are a fan, run to pick this one up. If you don't know VI, 'Hardball' could be read as a standalone but do yourself a big favor. Start from the beginning and learn to love her.