Sara Paretsky

While visiting Angela, one of her protégées in Kansas, V.I. Warshawski, when Angela's roommate goes missing and V.I. finds her near death in a drug house, is pitched headlong into the country's opioid crisis and a local land-use battle with roots going back to the Civil War.

This collection of fourteen short stories-- eight of which feature detective V.I. Warshawski-- are a celebration of Paretsky's exceptional storytelling skill and a searing exploration of the dark conspiracies and desperate human acts hiding in plain sight. The stories range from V.I.'s very first investigation (at the age of ten) to a new story in which V.I. treads the line between justice and vengeance. The other stories involve a young girl involved...

Chicago may be the city of broad shoulders, but its political law is "Pay to Play." Money changes hands in the middle of the night, and by morning, buildings and parks are replaced by billion-dollar projects. Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals through her impetuous goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard. Bernie tries to rescue Lydia Zamir, a famed singer-songwriter now living on the streets; Zamir's life fell apart when...

Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski knows from the start that Consuelo Alvarado's baby is trouble. Consuelo is sixteen. Diabetic. And the daughter of a friend. When she goes into labor too early, even V.I.'s wild drive to get her to the hospital can't save either Consuelo or her child. Soon V.I. is investigating possible malpractice at the emergency room -- and falling for a doctor who works there. Mixing business and love is always bad medicine,...

Detective V.I. Warshawski struggles to help her friend keep her home and tries to investigate the disappearce of her other neighbor's longtime friend.

V.I. Warshawski may have left her old South Chicago neighborhood, but she learns that she cannot escape it. When V.I. takes over coaching duties of the girls' basketball team at her former high school, she faces an ill-equipped, ragtag group of gangbangers, fundamentalists, and teenage moms who inevitably draw the detective into their family woes.

When V.I. Warshawski returns to her Chicago office, she finds her once tidy work space in ruins. Ripped documents, upended drawers, and framed pictures have been strewn about. The most chilling find, though, is a bracelet belonging to Warshawki's cousin, Petra. With Petra missing, the cops spring into action, labeling the episode as kidnapping, assault, and aggravated burglary. As they investigate, Warshawski wonders if her connection to the Anacondas...

A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V.I., who is hired by a veteran's family to clear his name after his arrest for the murder of a performer known as the Body Artist. As V.I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.

Nine stories on PI V.I. Warshawski of Chicago, mostly involving friends and family. In one, at the request of an Italian cousin she searches for sheet music which belonged to her mother, in another a friend asks her aid in recovering a stolen family sculpture.