Journal Entry 1 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Saturday, December 31, 2011

"Carmilla, Queen of the Night, is a shape-shifting raven whose fictional exploits thrill girls all over the world. When tweens in Chicago's Carmilla Club hold an initiation ritual in an abandoned cemetery, they stumble on an actual corpse, a man stabbed through the heart in a vampire-style slaying.

The girls include daughters of some of Chicago's most powerful families: The grandfather of one, Chaim Salanter, is one of the world's wealthiest men; the mother of another, Sophy Durango, is the Illinois Democratic candidate for Senate.

For V. I. Warshawski, the questions multiply faster than the answers. Is the killing linked to a hostile media campaign against Sophy Durango? Or to Chaim Salanter's childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania? As V.I. struggles for answers, she finds herself fighting enemies who are all too human."

Received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.
 

Journal Entry 2 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I suppose I'm at a disadvantage for not having read any of Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski novels previously. There were a few instances where I felt a little out of the loop for not knowing any background information, but for the most part, I could follow the storyline without too much difficulty. V.I. ("Vic") is a tough female private investigator, sometimes trying to be tougher than she probably actually is. But not bad for an around-50ish P.I. I thought some of the transitions in this book were a little choppy, but overall I really liked the mystery of the whole thing and I was kept guessing until almost the end. I also loved the Chicago setting. It's fun to read about locations you can relate to.