The Crime Warp

What do ´ schadenfreude´ and gratitude have in common? Not much you would assume, but dig deep into Sara Paretsky´s 19 th V.I. Warshawski novel ´Shell Game´ and you might understand my little dilemma with regard to these words. What is more comforting on a cold winter day when you are cozied up on the sofa with a drink (insert your choice here), book in hand – especially if that book has an intrepid hard nosed P.I. who is constantly fighting not just villains but cold, hunger, exhaustion, carrying off bruising the size of the Great Lakes and human (bite) as well as frost bite. You might think that the vicarious enjoyment taken from her constant discomfort is schadenfreude, but to be fair, on closer examination it is more akin to gratitude – gratitude that you are not that crazy and a lot a lot more risk averse. So, if you vicariously want to take on international insurance and stock fraud, art looting from Syria, asshole real estate developers as well as Russian mobsters,...

  When young James Murray, a Scottish doctor, trained by the great Dr. Bell of Edinburgh, the real life mentor of Arthur Conan-Doyle and inspirer of the character of Sherlock Holmes, arrives in Turin in 1887, hoping to work alongside the pioneering Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso, he is shocked to find himself plunged into a series of brutal murders which seem to implicate Lombroso as the prime suspect.