V. I. Warshawski mysteries

“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...

Private eye V.I. Warshawski finds herself up against rampant corruption in Chicago's hospitals in the fourth novel in Sara Paretsky's New York Times bestselling series.
Young, diabetic, and pregnant, Consuelo Alvarado is lucky to have a mentor in V.I. Warshawski. But not even V.I. can help when Consuelo goes into premature labor in a remote suburb; mother and baby both die in the nearby hospital. When a young resident starts

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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...

Stubbornness has landed private eye V.I. Warshawski in big trouble at her Chicago office. With her grand old Loop building set to be razed, she's become a hold-out tenant amid frayed wiring and scary, empty corridors. Then she finds a homeless woman with three kids in the basement, and before she can rescue them, they disappear. Worst of all, she's been implicated in a murder—after the body of Deirdre Messenger, a prominent lawyer's wife, turns...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A spectacular mystery—complex, fast-paced yet ruminative, and imbued with the grim awareness, shared by all intelligent hard-boiled novels, that the past always catches up with us . . . a thrilling and even moving mystery.”—The Washington Post Book World
V.I.’s journey begins with a national conference in downtown Chicago, where angry protesters are calling...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Takes off with a bang—literally...V. I. remains a paragon among PIs, and Fire Sale is one of Paretsky’s best books yet.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch 
A conscience can weigh a PI down more than the heaviest firearm—and get her into more trouble too. It’s that nagging conscience that makes V. I. Warshawski agree to fill in as coach for the girls’...

“V.I. Warshawski is back—intelligent, tough, sarcastic and trouble-prone as ever....Body Work isn’t just a satisfying whodunnit; it’s a rich, well-written why-dunnit, striking some surprising chords that will resonate long after you finish the final page.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chicago’s Club Gouge attracts an eclectic audience, from bohemian types to Ukranian mobsters to young men just...

"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 travels to Kansas to investigate the disappearances of a young film student and a faded Hollywood star, but long-simmering racial tensions stir up more mysteries as the body count rises.

"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...

While visiting Angela, one 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.