“V.I. Warshawski is one of the best . . . smart, tough, sexy.”—Daily News (New York)
“Sara Paretsky makes excellent use of local backgrounds in a carefully plotted tale of murder and great misdeeds in the world of Great Lakes cargo shipping.”—Chicago Tribune
When Chicago Black Hawks hockey legend Boom Boom Warshawski slips off a wharf and drowns in Lake Michigan, his private-eye...

V. I. Warshawski isn't crazy about going back to her old south Chicago neighborhood, but a promise is something she always keeps. Caroline, a childhood friend, has a dying mother and a problem--after twenty-five years she wants V.I. to find the father she never knew. But when V.I. starts probing into the past, she stumbles onto some long-buried secrets--and a very new corpse. Now she's stirring up a deadly mix of big business and chemical corruption...

"Meeting an anonymous client late on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. But trouble is Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski's specialty. Her client says he's the prominent banker, John Thayer. Turns out he's not. He says his son's girlfriend, Anita Hill, is missing. Turns out that's not her real name. V.I.'s search turns up someone soon enough-the real John Thayer's son, and he's dead. Who's V.I.'s client? Why has she been set up and sent...

V.I. Warshawski faces an unholy trinity of corporate conspirators, Chicago's underworld and the Church itself.

Collection of short stories featuring gutsy female detective V.I. Warshawski, working her beat in the city of Chicago. FRIENDS & FAMILY CAN BE MURDER. Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense attitude, V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead. Enter her newfound Italian cousin Vico, with a score to settle--in blood. So much for family ties. But when...

For V.I., the journey begins with a national conference in downtown Chicago, where angry protesters are calling for the recovery of Holocaust assets. Replayed on the evening news is the scene of a slight man who has stood up at the conference to tell an astonishing story of a childhood shattered by the Holocaust -- a story that has devastating consequences for V.I.'s cherished friend and mentor, Lotty Herschel. Lotty was a girl of nine when she emigrated...

A conscience can weigh a PI down more than the heaviest firearm--and get her into more trouble. It's that nagging conscience that makes V. I. Warshawski agree to fill in as coach for the girls' basketball team at her South Chicago alma mater--which in turn leads her to the headquarters of By-Smart, the global retail empire where V. I. hopes to get some desperately needed funds for the struggling squad. But conscience seems to be in short supply at...

The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark. The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man-an Iraqi war vet-leaves the club. Days...

" New York Times-bestselling author Sara Paretsky's brilliant protagonist V.I. Warshawski returns in another hard-hitting entry, combining razor-sharp plotting and compelling characters with a heady mix of timely political and social themes. V.I. Warshawski's closest friend in Chicago is the Viennese-born doctor Lotty Herschel, who lost most of her family in the Holocaust. Lotty escaped to London in 1939 on the Kindertransport with a childhood playmate,...

V.I. Warshawski's impossible god-daughter Bernie convinces her to look for August, a young film-maker who has disappeared. The evidence indicates that he has gone to Kansas in the company of Emerald, an older black movie actress who wants to film the story of her life. Her search takes V.I. from the military base Emerald was born on, to the farm where she grew up outside a university town, ploughing up past and present-day secrets as she goes. What...