For this English-language edition, the authors have added a brief postscript to a narrative that stops with their subject's victory in a recall referendum in August 2004.

ECONOMIST: Latin America

And Britain had become too insignificant to provide the subject of a grand narrative of progress in the style of Macaulay.

ECONOMIST: A historian created and destroyed by Hitler

One warning, though: given that her overall narrative suggests that female literary status has been subject to historical ups and downs, one cannot assume women's writing will always be seen in the same light.

ECONOMIST: Women's literature in America

Despite the unlikely-sounding subject matter, Ms Paretsky dexterously intertwines these separate narrative threads.

ECONOMIST: Character is what makes these thrillers

Like so many war movies before it, "Starship Troopers" buys into its subject, willy-nilly, with the power of its pounding, scarifying narrative and the buggy brilliance of its special effects.

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