Fire Sale

Fire Sale was overall not bad. I’m not a mystery person at all, and I’m not really an action person either. It was hard for me to get into the characters with such a plot-driven novel. And plot-driven isn’t bad, but I don’t know that I really could find a character to latch on to, or care about, if that makes sense. V.I. was okay herself, but I didn’t really buy her, she seemed too kitschy, forcefully abrasive. I also had a slight problem with the “preachy-ness” of the book, the background liberal agenda or whatever you want to call it. I feel like the author tries to hide it, but it comes out, and that annoys me. The rich people were portrayed so thinly, and I think they would be more interesting if they had depth (they could still be evil, you know). Aside from that, though, this was really not bad. I did feel the plot was slow going at first, there’s lots of setting up to be done (maybe this is how it is with all mysteries), so I did have some of that “heavy page” syndrome of wondering when things were going to get going. What I did like about the book was of course it being set on the southside of Chicago. I wonder, if the book were not set here, would it work at all? I don’t think so, because Chicago is a character here was well. Overall, it was nice to read a genre novel with good writing. I don’t know that I’m a convert, but still, no regrets on the time spent.