Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, October 2007: As the Nazis advanced on France, celebrated writer Irène Némirovsky composed two final masterworks: Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. The first, smuggled out in a suitcase by her escaping daughters when Némirovsky was taken to her death at Auschwitz in 1942, surfaced more than 60 years later and restored her bestselling status. The other, two pages of which slipped out in that same suitcase, was thought lost--until biographers discovered the rest of the manuscript in papers given to Némirovsky's editor for safekeeping. A worthy companion to Suite Française, it follows three interwoven stories across two decades, when the hot-blooded affairs of youth threaten the cool calm of middle age. Once it has all unraveled, the last line lodges in your heart like a sliver. If only there could have been more. --Mari Malcolm

From Publishers Weekly

When she was writing Suite Française in 1940, Némirovsky, who died in Auschwitz in 1942 before turning 40, was also reworking this novel, newly discovered among her papers. Though composed on a smaller canvas, it is another keenly observed study of human nature, and in this case of Burgundy paysans. In a leisurely narrative, middle-aged narrator Silvio recounts three interlocking stories of love and betrayal over two decades. These secret affairs, he says, can be explained only by fire in the blood, the intense passion that can overtake men and women when they are young, highly sexed and vulnerable. Silvio's laconic descriptions of unappeasable desire are seasoned by bitter assessment of the wisdom earned after things cool. Linked through blood and common local history, the characters in this la ronde of betrayal exist in a seemingly idyllic community that is always alert for deviations from the social code. Némirovsky's restraint in unfolding her story contributes to the emotional crescendo at the story's denouement. In its penetrating distillation of manners and mores, this spare and elegant book makes a worthy follow-up to Suite. (Oct.)
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Vrij Nederland over Het web van de MOSSAD: ‘Het zijn (…) de vaak cynische onthullingen die Ostrovsky’s boek sensationeel maken.’ Nog sensationeler en onthullender is zijn boek MOSSAD – De keerzijde van het bedrog. Als jonge patriot meldt Victor Ostrovsky zich bij de Israëlische geheime dienst om volk en vaderland te dienen. Zijn idealisme maakt spoedig plaats voor teleurstelling als hij bemerkt dat corruptie en machtspolitiek weinig ruimte openlaten voor eigen opvattingen. Zijn verzet wordt dan ook beloond met ontslag op staande voet. Diezelfde avond nog ontmoet hij een van zijn grootste tegenstanders binnen de Mossad die hem een nieuwe baan aanbiedt. Een serieus voorstel of een valstrik? Lees en huiver en constateer dat het onderscheid tussen vriend en vijand lang niet zo duidelijk is als altijd wordt verondersteld. Lees over de nooit eerder opgehelderde moorden op bekende politici en over allerlei acties die zijn uitgelokt door de Mossad.

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Paretsky tracks the poisonous residue of racial hatred that still seeps into Chicago life and politics in her fine 13th novel to feature gutsy PI V.I. Vic Warshawski, last seen in 2005's Fire Sale. In her search for a black man who disappeared in 1967, Lamont Gadsden, Vic reconnects with some of her father Tony's old police colleagues; pays a prison visit to Johnny Merton, a notorious gang leader she once defended in her lawyering days; and tracks down Steve Sawyer, who disappeared following a murder conviction. Vic confronts an ugly period in Chicago's history, a peaceful march in 1966 by Martin Luther King that resulted in a white riot and the murder of a young black woman, Harmony Newsome. Digging into this ancient history stirs passions and fears of what secrets might be revealed. The apparent kidnapping of Vic's fresh-out-of-college cousin, Petra, who's come to Chicago to work on a senatorial campaign, raises the ante. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

'She is writing with the kind of passion for social justice that inspired Chandler and Hammett ... a narrative as gripping as it is emotionally wrenching.' -- Joan Smith, The Sunday Times 'Details are so rich and the dialogue so snappy that the mystery whizzes by.' -- Guardian 'With the creation of V.I. Warshawski, Sara Paretsky did more than anyone to change the face of contemporary women's fiction.' -- Express on Sunday 'Tough, complex and moving, Paretsky is still at the top of her crowded genre.' -- Bookseller 'The thing about Sara Paretsky is, she's tough ... she doesn't flinch from examining old social injustices others might find too shameful (and too painful) to dig up ... it's a distinct pleasure to hear her unapologetically strident voice once again' -- New York Times on HARDBALL