Sara Paretsky

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.

“No one, male or female, writes better P.I. books than Paretsky.”—The Denver Post
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,...

A strange crime gets V.I. Warshawski involved with some of Chicago’s most rich and powerful players in this thriller from New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky.
When a group of Chicago tweens holds a ritual in an abandoned cemetery, they stumble on an actual corpse—stabbed through the heart in a vampire-style slaying. V.I. Warshawski arrives on the scene to escort the girls home–but protecting them places...

V.I. Warshawski, “undoubtedly one of the best-written characters in mystery fiction” (The Baltimore Sun), returns in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to “ties that bind.” Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense Attitude, V.I. is out to make a living—by the skin of her teeth.
In “Grace Notes,” V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when...

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...

In this short story from New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky, acclaimed detective V.I. Warshawski must confront gun violence in her own Chicago hometown

Legendary sleuth V.I. Warshawski is no stranger to the sound of bullets. Growing up in the Windy City, it was a way of life: loved ones taken too early, gangs patrolling the streets by night, police too quick to touch a trigger. Now, in the wake of a string of high school shootings

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“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 is as dogged and ferocious as ever. So is Sara Paretsky, who is at the top of her crime novel game."
— C.J. Box

Chicago's legendary detective, V.I. Warshawski, knows her city's rotten underbelly better than most, but she's unable to avoid it when her goddaughter drags her into a fight over lakefront land use, in this propulsive novel from New York Times bestseller

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Another triumph for Ms. Paretsky, her most captivating novel yet . . . V.I. herself [is] undoubtedly one of the best-written characters in mystery fiction.”—The Baltimore Sun
Someone knocking on the door at 3 A.M. is never good news. For V.I. Warshawski, the bad news arrives in the form of her wacky, unwelcome aunt Elena. The fire that has just burned down a sleazy SRO hotel...

Feisty Chicago private eye Vic 'V. I.' Warshawski is used to getting mixed up in complicated cases. But when three million dollars in share certificates are stolen from a Dominican priory, she really doesn't want to get involved. Because agreeing to investigate would mean doing a favour for Aunt Rosa, the priory's treasurer, and Vic has never forgiven Rosa for something she did a long time ago.

Against her better judgement, Vic gets drawn in,

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