If you like Donald Trump, don’t bother reading Shell Game, Sara Paretsky’s newest mystery novel: it will only irritate you. For the rest of us, it’s definitely worth reading.

For a long time I always read every Paretsky book, but then my interest began to flag. In recent years I resumed the goal of reading all of her books, and I’m happy to report that this one lives up to my expectations. Of course, as I suggested in my first paragraph, it has a great deal of politics in it, and that may be either a plus or a minus for you. It contains a lot about immigration, attitudes toward Muslims, attitudes toward undocumented immigrants, payday loan companies, evil lawyers, and so forth. It’s also a good mystery, of special interest to those of us who are interested in the ancient world. But do be forewarned about the politics, or you might react the way one reviewer on Amazon reacted:

The story was okay, but I didn’t realize I was reading a totally political book. It was a very political and totally ruined the murder mystery, with all the political crap thrown in. I support the President, so I have the freedom to put this author on the way back burner.

Sigh. What can I say?

And another Amazon reviewer reveals that there’s  lot of corruption in Chicago. I never would have guessed.

In a standard trope that will be immediately familiar to any devoted mystery reader, two apparently unrelated cases turn out to be intertwined. And long-time readers of Sara Paretsky will enjoy the appearance of the standard characters, especially V.I. Warshawki but also Mr. Contreras, their co-owned dogs, and Lottie Herschel.

Categories: Books