V.I. Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky by Sara Paretsky (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7,450 ratings — published 1988 — 32 editions book 5 Want to Read saving… Indemnity Only (V.I. Warshawsky, 1): Sara Paretsky, Donada Peters: 9780736622820: Amazon.com: Books By Craig P. Roberts on August 14, 2000 She's as tough as nails, a real smart cookie and she's taking on the Chicago crime scene. Her name is V.(ictoria) I.(phigenia) Warshawski, a contemporary private eye investigating white-collar corruption in the heartland of America. Sara Pareksky has created a female character in her series of books that can rival Mickey Spillane or Mike Hammer in her toughness and wisecracking. Indemnity Only is the first V. I. Warshawski novel written by Pareksky. In this novel she finds herself employed by her client to find his son's missing girlfriend and instead finds the son,and he's dead.

Soon she finds herself embroiled with union leaders, mob killings and insurance fraud, as well as continuing her hunt for the young woman whose life may be in jeopardy. This is a novel that will hold the interest of those of us from the babyboomer generation as we relate to Warshawkski's return to her college alma mater. Read this novel for a great introduction to V. I. Warshawski. 4.0 out of 5 stars Is Anyone Who They Say They Are? ByA customeron August 7, 2001 After a late night visit from a client asking her to find a missing girl, V. I. Warshawski finds the body of a collage student shot in the head at his kitchen table. V. I., Vick, as her friends call her, has a mystery to unravel. The first thing she unravels is that nobody appears to be who he or she says they are. I truly enjoyed this book. V.I. Warshawski was a wonderful character. Ms. Paretsky did a wonderful job at making her colorful and humorous. Indeed, Ms. Paretsky made all of the characters good. This book, though a little on the older side was the first in the V.

I. Warshawski series. Not possessing the extreme descriptions that so many authors in this genre feel needs to be included, Ms. Paretsky described people, places and things providing enough information without overkill. Ms. Peters (reader) also did a wonderful job at bringing characters to life. Though the male characters weren't overpowering, (tough for a female to do a male characters voice), the female characters were all outstanding, including that of Jill the 14-year girl. This was my first experience with Ms. Paretsky and found it enjoyable. Being one who listens to many audio books while commuting to/from work. I found this book enjoyable and certainly plan on trying others by Ms. Paretsky. 4.0 out of 5 stars Sheï¿½s As Tough As Nails Yet As Smooth as Silk By Untouchable on July 25, 2001 This is the book that introduces us to V.I. Warshawski, possibly the toughest female private investigator in the game. She is hired by an influential businessman to find his son and his son's girlfriend.

It doesn't take long before she finds the son dead, the man who hired her wasn't whom he said he was, and she's had the proverbial beaten out of her as a warning to drop the case. V.I. is another one of those private investigators that, once hired, will stop at nothing to solve the case. Although she's told by her original client that he no longer requires her services, she persists like a dog with a bone, determined to see the case through to it's conclusion. The setting is Chicago and it's summer, so we're given a lot of speculation on how the Cubs are going to fare that year. Now, I'm from Australia, but even I know that the season's only going to end in disappointment...again. (No offence sports fans). This is another enjoyable private investigator book with a good, hard as nails protagonist. I have no problem recommending this to anyone who enjoys the Robert Parker "Spenser" series or the Robert Crais "Elvis Cole" series. By Avid Reader VINE VOICE on December 7, 2003 I am a late-comer to the V.I. Warshawski series.

I'd known about for years, but after seeing the dreadful Kathleen Turner movie version, I decided to skip the books. Stupid me! I've only read this first book, but I have to say I'm hooked. The character of V.I. Warshawski is probably one of the best female P.I. characters out there. Sara Paretsky has written strong, three dimensional female that you can easily become attached to. The plot of this first book was a little choppy, but the author's understanding of Chicago -- the lay of the land, the police, the politics -- makes up for any shortcomings. Bravo job! I look forward to reading the entire series. 5.0 out of 5 stars The beginning of a legend By Lesbian Reader on February 26, 2002 After reading JM Redmann's wonderful Death by the Riverside featuring MIckey Knight, I was so vividly taken with the strong female character that I just had to re-read the other strong female character that I love: VI Warshawsky. Like Knight, Warshawsky is a tough cookie who can hurt, a smart woman who makes human mistakes, and a real pain... for friends who wish she wouldn't get herself into such danger.

Paretsky's gift in storytelling is the way she takes a small incident and lets it mushroom until seemingly unrelated incidents form the picture of a larger, uglier tale. Warshawsky herself is complicated and richly textured character and I loved revisiting her. By Carol Peterson Hennekens on May 23, 2001 I've read most of the V.I. Warshawski series as they were released and thought I know Vic pretty well. However, this first book in the series proved an unexpected source of new insights on one of the leading ladies of PI fiction. Some of it was simply background stuff. More interesting was just getting a sense of who she is and why she ticks. The mystery is interesting enough. A University of Chicago student has gone missing. Before she can blink, VI is immersed in a murder mystery with links to big insurance, a sleazy union and a very dangerous mobster. Still, her sarcastic humor and basic good heart come through as we tour greater Chicago. The pages turn easily. Bottom line: Certainly a good read for those who are new to the series and not a bad read for longtime fans.

By Grma Jan on July 16, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase The story is great, but the Kindle version is horrible... many, many distracting typographical errors, plus places where it seemed as though parts of the text might even be missing. This is an older book; I recognize that. Perhaps the text was scanned into a poor word-recognition program and/or sent to a third-world country to be retyped. However, if Kindle is going to charge as much as they do for books like this, a human proofreader should have been employed to check over the text before putting the electronic version on the market. I recommend buying a second-hand paper copy instead. American Mystery Novels 1945 - 1990 The Private Detective Mystery Author Index This page includes mystery writers who came to prominance between the end of World War II and 1990. Earlier writers may be found in Early Mystery Novels and Novels of the Golden Age . For books published after 1990, see American Mysteries Since 1990 The Private Detective Following the beginning of Prohibition, crime and accompanying dishonesty in police departments and in city hall increased.

This development provided the inspiration for the fictional private eye. Two-fisted, hard-drinking, honest to a certain extent, the detective fought against crime and corruption. Detnovel.com by William Marling. This is an extensive history of the writers and themes of hard-boiled detective novels. Snoops: The Private Eye in American Cinema - This is an essay with some recommended films by Charles L. P. Silet Authors of Private Detective Stories Black Mask Magazine - In 1920, the first issue of Black Mask Magazine appeared. It and other pulp fiction magazines published the stories of many of the private detectives. Carroll John Daly - (1889 - 1958) His story "The False Burton Coombs" which was published in Black Mask in December, 1922 is credited with being the first hard-boiled story. The story "Three Gun Terry’ now seems to be recognized as the first hard-boiled private detective story. This story was published in the May 15, 1923 issue of Black Mask Magazine.

This is several months before the publication of the first Continental Op story by Dashiell Hammett ("Arson Plus", October 1, 1923). For more information about Daly, see Wikipedia . "The False Burton Coombs" and other stories by Daly may obtained as ebooks from Amazon. Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) Hammett was the first successful author of novels of the tough private detective. His book The Red Harvest was published in 1929. This was followed by The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and other novels and short stories. Hammett stopped writing novels in the mid-1930's. He was active in the Communist party, was a subject of the McCarthy investigations, and went to prison for a short time for failing to reveal what he knew about other party members. The Continental Op - Biography and bibliography of Hammett from the Thrilling Detective web site. Dashiell Hammett - the PBS American Masters production. The Dashiell Hammett Filmography - From the Internet Movie Database. Baynard H.

Kendrick (1894 - 1977) - Kendrick's private detective Duncan Maclain is blind. This character was developed from Kendrick's experience working with blinded WWI veterans, and showed that the handicap of blindness could be overcome. Kendrick was born in Philadelphia, Pa, and graduated from Episcopal Academy in 1912. he was the first American to join the Canadian Army. He served in France and was decorated by both the British and Canadian governments. He published his first novel, Blood on Lake Louise in 1934. He lived in many parts of the US and worked at a wide variety of jobs. He was an organizer of The Blind Veterans Association and served on its board. The movie Bright Victory is based on his novel Lights Out. The TV series Longstreet was adapted from the Duncan Maclain character. Kendrick was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of American, and was named a Grand Master in 1967. Cleve F. Adams (1885 - 1949) - Adams was born in Chicago.

In 1919, he moved to California and worked at a variety of jobs such as soda jerk, interior decorator, copper miner, detective, and film director. He began writing stories for pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Detective Fiction Weekly. He published 50 short stories between 1936 and 1942. He was one of the few writers who made the successful transition from pulp fiction to writing detective novels. His first novels Sabotage and And Sudden Death were published in 1940, and he published 13 more novels after this. His series detectives such as Rex McBruce, William Rye, and John J. Shannon, were hard fighting and very tough characters. Adams was a founding member of the Fictioneers, a group of pulp writers, in Los Angeles. A bibliography of Adams' books may be found at Fantastic Fiction. Raymond Chandler (1870-1959) - Chandler continued the tough guy tradition which Hammett had started. Chandler's first novel The Big Sleep appeared in 1939.

It was followed by other novels such Farewell My Lovely and The Lady in the Lake, and short stories which were published in Black Mask. For a biography, bibliography, and filmography, go to the Raymond Chandler page of the Thrilling Detective web site. Earle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) Gardner originally practised law. He, however, hoped that if he became an author that he would have both financial success and more free time. He wrote many short stories which were published in pulp magazine before 1932 In 1933, he published The Case of the Velvet Claw which was the first Perry Mason novel. This book was the first in a long series of extremely popular books about the crime fighting lawyer. Earle Stanley Gardner - Commentary and bibliography by the Thrilling Detective web site. Earle Stanley Gardner - Listing of television shows and movies based on Gardner's writings from the Internet Movie Database. James M. Cain (1892 - 1977). Cain was born in Annapolis, MD. He was a reporter for the The Baltimore American and New York World.

He published short stories in pulp magazines and, in 1934, his first and most famous novel The Postman Always Rings Twice was published. Cain also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for 17 years. Cain never did write a true detective novel. His books are almost always from the criminal's point of view. Several were made in successful movies such as Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce. Cain was named a Grand Master of Mystery in 1970. His biography and bibliography may be found at the Wikipedia web site.. His filmography may be found at the Internet Movie Database. . George Harmon Coxe (1901 - 1984) - Coxe was born in Olean, New York. He attended both Purdue University and Cornell University and never did obtain a degree. He worked at a variety of odd jobs until he moved west and became a journalist for the Santa Monica Outlook and later with the Los Angeles Express. He moved back east and worked for several newspapers. In 1932, he became a full time writer, and wrote stories for pulp magazines. He would write 63 movels during his lifetime.

He was named a Grand Master of Mystery in 1964 by The Mystery Writers of America. He wrote several series and some stand alone novels. Two of his series dealt with the exploits of Jack Flashgun Casey, a photographer for the Boston Globe and of Kent Murdock, a photographer for the Boston Courier-Herald, A bibliography of his books may be found at the Frantastic Fiction web site. His books have been reissued in ebook form by Mysterious Press. Brett Halliday (1904 - 1977) - Brett Halliday is the pen name of Davis Dresser. He is best known for the Mike Shayne series of detective novels and for the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Dresser was born in Chicago. He ran away from home at age fourteen and enlisted in the army. He was discharged two years later when his real age was discovered. He worked at odd jobs and received a certificate in civil engineering. He could not find a job during the depression so he turned to writing stories for pulp magazines. His first Mike Shayne novel Dividend on Death was published in 1939. This book had been rejected 22 times before it was published by Henry Holt.

The Mike Shayne character was a break with the tradition of the hard-drinking, hard-fighting private detective. Shayne was more likely to use his brain to solve a case. For more information, see the article at Wikipedia . The Mike Shayne novels were produced after Halliday stopped writing them and more information about this may be found at the Thrilling Detective web site. James Holding (1907 - 1997) James Holding was born in Ben Avon, Pennsylvania, and attended Yale University. He worked as a copywriter at Batte, Barton, Durstine & Osborne in Pittsburgh and rose to be vice President. James Holding was a prolific writer of short stories. He wrote short stories under the name of Ellery Queen, after the real Queen authors could no longer write, and wrote for the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and other mystery magaines. He created the "Library Fuzz" series of short stories about detective Hal Johnson who tracks down overdue library books and solves crimes along the way. This is a series which will definitely appeal to librarians and library fans. These stories are available from Amazon in the Library Fuzz Megapack.

For more information about Holding, see Good Reads Ross Macdonald - (1915 - 1983) Pseudonym of Kenneth Millar. Millar was born in California, and had a doctorate in English literature, and, at one time, was a university professor. He was married to Margaret Millar who was also a successful mystery novelist. He wrote under the name MacDonald to avoid confusion with her books. Macdonald is best known for his books featuring Lew Archer. The first of these, The Moving Target was published in 1949.His biography and bibliography may be found at the Thrilling Detective web site. More information about Margaret Millar (1915 - 1994) may be found at the Los Angeles Review of Books web site. Stanley Ellin (1916 - 1986) - Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brooklyn College and graduated at the height of the great depression. He worked at a variety of odd jobs while he unsuccessfully tried to sell his fiction. He served in the army at the end of World War II. After the war, he became more successful in his writing career.

In 1948, he published his first novel Dreadful Summit. During his lifetime, Ellin published 14 novels and four collections of short stories. Ellin won three Edgar awards for his writing, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1981. More biographical information may be found at the Golden Age of Detection web site. A bibliography of his works may be found at the Fantastic Fiction web site. "Stanley Ellen - Profile of Award Winning Short Story Mystery Author" by Charles L. P. Silet may be found at Mystery Net. John D. MacDonald - (1916-1986) MacDonald was born in Sharon, PA. He studied business administration before entering the army in 1940. MacDonald began writing short stories for pulp magazines when he was still in the army. His first novel The Brass Cupcake was published in 1950. He is best known for the Travis McGee series. He was named a Grand Master of Mystery in 1972.

For more information, see his homepage Mickey Spillane (1918 - 2006) Spillane was born and grew up in a tough section of Brooklyn, NY. He started writing for slick magazines before turning to pulp fiction. He also wrote comic books and was the originator of Captain Marvel and Captain America. He was in the Air Force during WWII. After the war, he worked for Barnum and Bailey Circus as a trampoline performer. Spillane is best known for his brutal tough guy hero Mike Hammer. For more information, try the Thrilling Detective web site. Robert B. Parker (1932 - 2010). Parker was 40 before he turned to writing. His first book The Godwulf Manuscript featuring his tough private eye Spenser (no first name) was published in 1973. For more information, go to an article and bibliography at the Bookreporter web site . Parker also has a web site. Donald Westlake (1933 - 2008) Westlake was a prolific author of crime fiction and wrote over 90 books. He published under several pseudonyms of which the best known is probably Richard Stark.

He virtually invented the comic caper novel with his series about John Dortmunder. Westlake won 3 Edgar awards, and was named a Grand Master in 1993. Several films were based on his books. An extensive bibliography of his works may be found at the Thrilling Detective web site. More information about Westlake may be found at Donald Westlake.com. Marcia Muller (1944 - ) Muller was born in Detroit, MI. She worked for several magazine before writing mystery novels. Muller published Edwin of the Iron Shoes in 1977 which was the first in a series of Sharon McCone books. McCone was the first hard-boiled female detective. Muller is married to Bill Pronzini, the author of the "nameless detective" series. Muller's web site Sara Paretsky (1947 - ) Author of the series featuring the Chicago private investigator V. I. Warshawski. The first book of the series Indemnity Only was published in 1982. Ms. Paretsky was name a Grand Master of Mystery by the Mystery Writers of America in 2010.

Paretsky's web site Sue Grafton (1940 - ) Ms. Grafton grew up in Louisville, Ky. She worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood prior to taking up the writing of mystery novels. Her series features Kinsey Milhone, P.I. who lives in Santa Theresa, CA. Her first novel A is for Alibi was published in 1982. Grafton's web site. Policemen, Forensic Investigators, and Crime Novels Rufus King (1893 - 1966) King's principal series detective was Lieutenant Valcour who was introduced in the book Murder by the Clock in 1929 and was in ten later novels in this series. King wrote only one book, Holiday Homicide featuring private detective Cotton Moon (1940). Interest in his novels fell off after this and King turned to writing short stories. King's novel Museum Piece No. 13 was brought to the screen by Fritz Lang as the Secret Beyond the Door in 1948. King was born in New York City, and served in the army in World War I. For more information on his writings, see The Golden Age of Detection web site.

For more information on his movies, see the Internet Movie Database . Zelda Popkin (1898 - 1983) - Ms. Popkin wrote five mystery novels which featured Mary Carner, a store detective, who was one of the first female detectives in mystery literature. She also wrote one of the first novels about the Holocaust. For more information, visit this web site by her grandson. Dorothy B. Hughes (1904 - 1993) - Dorothy B. Hughes wrote crime novels and was a reviewer of mystery novels. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a journalism degree. She wrote 14 mystery novels, some of which such as The Fallen Sparrow, and In a Lonely Place were made into films. From 1940 - 1979, she reviewed mystery novels for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Herald Tribune and other papers. In 1978, she wrote Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason which is a biography of that author. Hughes received two Edgar Awards, and was named a Grand Master of Mystery in 1978.

Several of her novels have been reissued and are available at Amazon. More biographical information may be found at Wikipedia The Crime of Blackness: Dorothy B. Hughes' Forgotten Noir - A review of her novel The Expendable Man by Christine Smallwood in the New Yorker. More information about her films may be found at The Internet Movie Database. Helen McCloy (1904 - 1994) - Ms. McCloy wrote a series featuring Dr. Basil Willing, a psychiatrist and consultant to law enforcement agencies. Helen McCloy studied at the Sorbonne and served as a foreign art critic for several US magazines. She returned to the US in 1932. She was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America, and was named a Grandmaster by the MWA in 1990. She was married to author Brett Halliday. Aspiring mystery writers may be interested in applying for the Helen McCloy Scholarship given by the MWA.Her biography and bibliography may be found at the Golden Age of Detection web site. Charlotte Armstrong (1905 - 1969) Armstrong was born in Vulcan, Michigan.

She attended the University of Michigan and received her degree from Barnard College. She sold classified advertisement for the New York Times and also worked as a fashion reporter. She married Jack Lewi in 1925, and quit work to raise her three children. She published her first mystery Lay On, McDuff in 1943. After two other novels were published, she had great success with the novel The Unsuspected which was made into a movie as was a later novel Mischief. The film version of Mischief was named Don't Bother to Knock. She received an Edgar award for A Dram of Poison in 1957. Her novels were mainly novels of suspense. Her film credits are given at The Internet Movie Database . Further biographical information and a bibliography of her books may be found at The Golden Age of Detection Wiki . Chester Himes (1909 - 1984) wrote the first mystery series which featured African-American detectives. Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri. He graduated from Glenville High School in Cleveland. He entered Ohio State University but he engaged in several nonapproved activities and was expelled from the university.

In 1928, he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison. He was parolled to his mother in 1936. He worked at a variety of jobs including the Ohio State Writers project. At the start of World War II, he moved to Los Angeles where he published his first novel, If He Hollers, Let Him Go in 1945. In 1953, he moved to Europe. He is best know for his Harlem Domestic series of novels which features the detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. For a biography, visit the Detnovel web site. Margaret Millar (1915 - 1994) - Margaret Ellis Sturm was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. She attended Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute as did her husband-to-be, Kenneth Millar. After college, they married, and Kenneth wrote under the pen name of Ross Macdonald to avoid the confusion of two mystery writers with the same last name. The Millars moved to the United States and settled in Santa Barbara, CA.

Millar's first novel, The Invisible Worm, was published in 1941. She wrote mainly novel of psychological suspense. She won two Edgar awards and in 1983, received the award for lifetime achievement. She was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 1956. For more extensive biographical information, visit the Los Angeles Review of Books web site. Patricia Highsmith (1921 - 1995). Highsmith is a master of the crime novel. Ms. Highsmith was born in Fort Worth, Texas. She attended public schools in New York City, and graduated from Barnard College. Her first suspense novel, Strangers on a Train was published in 1950 and was an immediate success. Her subsequent books were much better received in Europe than in the United States. She is well know for the series about murderer and con man, Tom Ripley. The first Ripley book was The Talented Mr. Ripley which was published in 1955. More biographical information may be found at Wikipedia . A list of movie and TV shows based on her writings may be found at the Internet Movie Database.

Tony Hillerman (1925 - 2008) Hillerman was born in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma. He had a career in journalism and wrote a series of novels featuring Navaho Tribal policemen Leaphorn and Chee. The first of these was The Blessing Way which was published in 1970. A bibliography and short biography may be found at Fantastic Fiction . An annotated list of Hillerman's book may be found at the Dancing Badger web site. Ed McBain (1926 - 2005) aka Evan Hunter and Richard Marsten. McBain has established himself as the premier writer of police procedural novels. His series about the 87th Precinct began with Cop Hater which was published in 1956. He received the Grand Master award of the MWA in 1986. The McBain web site Julie Smith (1944 - ) Born in Maryland, raised in Georgia, and now residing in New Orleans. Ms. Smith has written several series. The Skip Langdon series features a woman police detective in New Orleans. The first book in this series New Orleans Mourning won the Edgar Award. Ms.

Smith also writes a series about African-American poet and private investigator Talba Wells who also lives in New Orleans. A biography and bibliography may be found at Wikipedia Patricia Cornwell (1956 - ) - Series featuring Kay Scarpetta, medical examiner. Her first book Postmortem was published in 1990. Patricia Cornwell web site This site is maintained by Linda Bertland, Philadelphia, PA. Please address any comments, additions, or corrections to info@sldirectory.com Order of Sara Paretsky Books - OrderOfBooks.com Home | Characters | Authors Order of Sara Paretsky Books Sara Paretsky is an American novelist of detective fiction, largely featuring female private investigator V.I. Warshawski . Paretsky’s contributions to crime fiction include writing a female character who breaks all of the rules of what a female detective is “supposed” to be and transcending the typical labels. Sara Paretsky had her first novel published in 1982, which was Indemnity Only. The frequency of her novels are typically about one every two years – sometimes more, sometimes less. Below is a list of all of Sara Paretsky’s books in order of when they were originally published: Publication Order of V.I.

Warshawski Books Indemnity Only 25 great private eye novels – Red Wing Public Library A Trouble of Fools It’s the kind of case that has “NO!” written all over it. But ex-cop Carlotta Carlyle has a p.i. license getting moldy from disuse, so she takes on the search for a little old lady’s missing brother. After all, how much trouble could an aging cabbie get into? Plenty, Carlotta learns, as she uncovers a scam of laundered money and drug running, all mixed together in that dangerously powerful brew known as Boston-Irish politics. First in the Carlotta Carlyle series. Ken Bruen The Guards Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Guards, Ireland’s police force—and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. In his sober moments Jack aspires to become Ireland’s best private investigator, not to mention its first—Irish history, full of betrayal and espionage, discourages any profession so closely related to informing. [Then] a dazzling woman walks into the bar with a strange request and Jack surprises himself by getting hired.

Stark, violent, sharp, and funny, The Guards is an exceptional novel, one that leaves you stunned and breathless. First in the Jack Taylor series. The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke Detective Dave Robicheaux has fought too many battles: in Vietnam, with killers and hustlers, with police brass, and with the bottle. Lost without his wife’s love, Robicheaux’s haunted soul mirrors the intensity and dusky mystery of New Orleans’ French Quarter — the place he calls home, and the place that nearly destroys him when he becomes involved in the case of a young prostitute whose body is found in a bayou. Thrust into the world of drug lords and arms smugglers, Robicheaux must face down a subterranean criminal world and come to terms with his own bruised heart in order to survive. First in the Dave Robicheaux series. Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep The Big Sleep was an instant success when first published in 1939. It centers around a paralyzed California millionaire with two psychopathic daughters; he involves Marlowe in a case of blackmail that turns into murder.

“Chandler writes like a slumming angel and invests the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence,” said Ross Macdonald. And George V. Higgins wrote: “Chandler is fun to read. He’s as bleak as tundra, and his dirtbag characters far outnumber his stellar citizens, but Philip Marlowe is a laconic tour guide through a zoo of truly interesting animals.” First in the Philip Marlowe series. Reed Farrel Coleman Walking the Perfect Square From Publishers Weekly: “Raymond Chandler once advised that when things get slow in a story, have a man with a gun come through the door. What’s most remarkable about Coleman’s first mystery to feature Brooklyn PI Moe Praeger (after three Dylan Klein noirs: Little Easter, etc.) is that he never resorts to such a crude device. Rooted in the late 1970s, the story is so solid, the characters so compelling, the pace so expertly driven that he can dispense with the usual genre stitches. If the one murder in the book occurs off-stage, there’s no lack of suspense.

The author makes us care about his characters and what happens to them, conveying a real sense of human absurdity and tragedy, of the price people will pay to get ahead or hide their true selves. Moe’s job—he’s an ex-cop forced to retire because of a knee injury—is to find the son of another cop, a young man who left a party one night and hasn’t been seen since.” First in the Moe Prager series. Michael Connelly The Black Echo For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch — hero, maverick, nighthawk — the body in the drain pipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal. The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam “tunnel rat” who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the tortuous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.

Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him. First in a series . John Connolly Every Dead Thing From Library Journal: “Connolly’s debut novel is the story of cop turned private investigator Charlie “Bird” Parker’s hunt for the murderer of his wife and child, a serial killer whose modus operandi is the surgical dissection of his live victims. [T]he tale is a double-helixed storm through the world of organized crime and the underworld of serial predators. Bird’s chase leads him from New York City to New Orleans and many small nowheres in between, all fairly believably brought to life through this outsider’s observant eye. The grim and grisly events are emotionally balanced by the book’s dark humor and Bird’s vulnerability. This is a highly intelligent and exciting novel, with almost enough action and story for two books.” First in a series .

Robert Crais The Monkey’s Raincoat From BookList: “An impressive debut that will have private-eye aficionados comparing Elvis Cole with such established fictional ops as Spenser, Jacob Asch, Harry Stoner, and Albert Samson. Cole is an L.A.-based sleuth with a smart mouth, a flair for the martial arts, and a borderline sociopath for a partner. He’s hired to find a missing husband, a failing Hollywood agent. Routine? Not after the missing hubby turns up dead, the widow and young son are kidnapped, and a big-time drug czar demands that Cole return two kilos of missing cocaine. Crais’ characters command attention, and his dialogue is unerring. Cole is simply the most mesmerizing new PI in years.” First in a series . Loren Estleman Motor City Blue Hired by a semi-retired gangster to find his enticing young ward, a promising porno-film star, Amos Walker journeys through the seamy underside of Detroit and unwittingly solves the murder of a popular black labor leader. First in the Amos Walker series.

Sue Grafton A is for Alibi A tough-talking former cop, private investigator Kinsey Millhone has set up a modest detective agency in a quiet corner of Santa Teresa, California. A twice-divorced loner with few personal possessions and fewer personal attachments, she’s got a soft spot for underdogs and lost causes. Eight years ago, Nikki Fife was convicted of killing her philandering husband. Now she’s out on parole and needs Kinsey’s help to find the real killer. If there’s one thing that makes Kinsey feel alive, it’s playing on the edge. When her investigation turns up a second corpse, more suspects, and a new reason to kill, Kinsey discovers that the edge is closer–and sharper–than she imagined. First in the Kinsey Milhone series. James Hall Under Cover of Daylight Thorn was an infant when his parents died in a senseless car crash; he was 19 when he killed the man who, as a reckless teenager, caused their deaths. In the 20 years since that act, he has lived in a shack on Key Largo, tying bonefish flies for a living and trying to come to terms with his guilt.

Then he meets Sarah Ryan, a young prosecuting attorney, and she begins to draw him out, involving him in the fight against uncontrolled development of the Keys that she wages with Kate, Thorn’s foster mother. When Kate is found murdered on her charter fishing boat, Thorn leaves his cave for good. A progressively crazy hired killer and a complicated land acquisition scheme, Kate’s murder and others that follow, who Sarah really is, and what secrets she and Thorn will keep or tell keep this complex story together until its dramatic, satisfying resolution. First in the Thorn series. A Hard Ticket Home by David Housewright Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie’s last known associates.

He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities’ most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he’s looking for, and why, are not exactly what he’d imagined. First in the Mac MacKenzie series. Dennis Lehane A Drink Before the War As richly complex and brutal as the terrain it depicts, here is the mesmerizing, darkly original novel that heralded the arrival of Dennis Lehane, the master of the new noir — and introduced Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, his smart and tough private investigators weaned on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester. A cabal of powerful Boston politicians is willing to pay Kenzie and Gennaro big money for a seemingly small job: to find the missing cleaning woman who stole some secret documents. As Kenzie and Gennaro learn, however, this crime is no ordinary theft. It’s about justice. About right and wrong. But in Boston, finding the truth isn’t just a dirty business … it’s deadly.

First in the Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro series. Laura Lippman Charm City Reporter-turned-PI Tess Monaghan loves every inch of her native Baltimore–a quirky city where baseball reigns and homicide seems to be the second most popular sport. Business tycoon “Wink” Wynkowski wants to change all that by bringing pro basketball back to town–a laudable mission that’s greeted with widespread cheers . . . until a muckraking front-page expose of his past appears in the “Beacon-Light.” The “Blight”‘s surprised editors are sure they killed the piece. Instead, the piece kills Wynkowski, who’s discovered asphyxiated in his garage with his car’s engine running. Now the paper wants former newshound Tess to track down the rogue computer hacker whose prank took a human life. But there’s more than cyber-crime involved here–and Tess is about to discover firsthand that trying to stay alive in Charm City is murder these days. First in the Tess Monaghan series. John D. MacDonald The Deep Blue Good-by Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game.

He’s also a knight errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half….Cathy Kerr is innocence turned helpless desperation—all because of the smiling freckle-faced stranger named Junior Allen. Cathy has nowhere to turn—except to another stranger, that man named Travis McGee—who is a walking pillar of cold rage as he follows the depraved wreckage of Junior Allen’s trail. First in the Travis McGee series. Sara Paretsky Indemnity Only From Kirkus Reviews: “V. I. (Victoria) Warshawski of Chicago is hired by banker John Thayer (or so he identifies himself) to locate Anita, the missing girlfriend of his son Peter. But when V.I. then promptly discovers Peter’s murdered body, the plot thickens: her client, it seems, was really Anita’s father, a shady labor leader; and Peter was working for the Ajax Insurance Co.–which may have had illegal connections with the labor leader and with some mobster types (who rough V.I. up).

Then Peter’s father (the real John Thayer) is also murdered, so the insurance/bank/union/mob tangle gets more complicated. And before V.I. exposes a convincing insurance scare, she finds the missing Anita and plays godmother to Peter Thayer’s unhappy teenage sister. First in the V.I. Warshawski series. Robert Parker The Godwulf Manuscript First in the classic Spenser series. Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surpised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn’t finish his assignment soon, he could end up marked “D” — for dead. First in the Spenser series. Bill Pronzini The Vanished Bill Pronzini was awarded in 1987 The Eye, the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by The Private Eye Writers of America.

He has also received from the Mystery Writers of America their Grand Master designation in May 2008. His most famous detective is The Nameless. Second in the Nameless Detective series. S. J. Rozan China Trade It’s always exciting to read the first novel of a newcomer with a distinctive voice and the talent to put a new spin on an established genre. Such is the case with this page-turning mystery introducing Lydia Chin, a Chinese American private investigator living in New York City’s Chinatown. When the Chinatown Museum is robbed of a set of rare porcelains, the chair of the board of directors calls in her friend Lydia, despite the opposition of Lydia’s brother, Tim, a board member embarrassed by his sister’s occupation (not suitable for a respectable Chinese woman) and afraid that her failure to solve the crime will make him lose face. Working with her sometime partner Bill Smith, Lydia finds a connection between the shadowy underworld of the tongs (Chinese gangs) and the black market in stolen art, which leads in turn to violence and danger–definitely unsuitable surroundings in the eyes of Lydia’s family. Rozan’s Chinatown setting has the ring of authenticity, and Lydia is a true original.

A very promising start to what shapes up as a top-flight series. First in the Lydia Chin and Bill Smith series. Dan Simmons Hardcase Joe Kurtz has been wronged one too many times. So when he takes out the drug dealing thug that killed his girlfried, the ex-PI gets to cool his heels for 11 years in Attica. It’s there that he meets “Little Skag” Farino, the son of an aging Buffalo, New York mob boss. In exchange for protecting the kid’s manhood against any unwanted jailhouse affection, Kurtz gets an audience with Little Skag’s father upon his release from prison. Byron Farino is still clinging to what dwindling power he holds on the New York organized crime scene. He enlists Kurtz’s help to track down the Family’s missing accountant – a man with too much knowledge of Family business to have on the loose. But someone doesn’t want the accountant found. As the story twists and turns and the body count rises, Kurtz no longer knows who he can trust. First in the Joe Kurtz series.

Andrew Vachss Flood From Washington Post Book World: “Burke’s newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her so she can kill him with her bare hands. In this cauterizing thriller, Andrew Vachss’s renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child’s murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements. Fearfully knowing, crackling with narrative tension, and written in prose as forceful as a hollow-point slug, Flood is Burke at his deadliest and Vachss at the peak of his form. An extraordinary thriller. . . . Vachss never flinches from the horror.” First in the Burke series. John Wessel This Far, No Further Harding was once a licensed private investigator with an office, a partner, and a future, but then a simple little domestic case – find the family’s missing daughter – turned on him when the daughter showed him the scars her father gave her.

Harding promised to protect her, but he couldn’t, not even after killing the man her father sent after them. Now Harding’s an ex-con, working off the books on another simple little domestic case – take a few pictures of a straying husband and his girlfriend – but this case turns on him too. First in the P.I. Harding series. Don Winslow Indemnity Only (V.I. Warshawski Novels): Sara Paretsky: 9780440210696: Amazon.com: Books Indemnity Only (V.I. Warshawski Novels) Add all three to Cart Add all three to List Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details Buy the selected items together This item:Indemnity Only (V.I. Warshawski Novels) by Sara Paretsky Mass Market Paperback $7.97 In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details Deadlock (V.I. Warshawski Novels) by Sara Paretsky Mass Market Paperback $7.90 Only 13 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details Bitter Medicine: A V.I. Warshawski Novel by Sara Paretsky Paperback $9.97 Only 4 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Page 1 of 1 Start over Sponsored Products are advertisements for products sold by merchants on Amazon.com. When you click on a Sponsored Product ad, you will be taken to an Amazon detail page where you can learn more about the product and purchase it. To learn more about Amazon Sponsored Products, click here . Carlos the Ant (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 4) John Ellsworth USA Today Bestseller John Ellsworth is burning up the Amazon charts. See why the Michael Gresham series made John Ellsworth a household name! Marriage Can Be Murder (Dr.

Benjamin Bones Mysteries Book 1) Emma Jameson First in a nostalgic cozy mystery series set in 1939 England. Handsome young Dr. Bones moves into a haunted house and must solve a murder. The Second Letter Robert Lane 2015 Gold Medal Winner of the IBPA's Best New Voice: Fiction "Lane created a winning hero in Jake Travis, funny as a stiletto." Florida Weekly Ad feedback Special Offers and Product Promotions Editorial Reviews Review "The Chicago writer whose name always makes the top of the list when people talk about the new female operatives." -- Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review. Read more From the Publisher Meeting an anonymous client late on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. But trouble is Chicago private eye V.I. Warshwski'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 out on a wild-goose chase? By the time she's got it figured, things are hotter -- and deadlier -- than Chicago in July. V.I.'s in a desperate race against time. At stake: a young woman's life. "The Chicago writer whose name always makes the top of the list when people talk about the new female operatives." -- Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . Product Details Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Dell; First Thus edition (June 1, 1991) Language: English Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces ( View shipping rates and policies ) Average Customer Review: By Craig P. Roberts on August 14, 2000 Format: Mass Market Paperback She's as tough as nails, a real smart cookie and she's taking on the Chicago crime scene. Her name is V.(ictoria) I.(phigenia) Warshawski, a contemporary private eye investigating white-collar corruption in the heartland of America.

Sara Pareksky has created a female character in her series of books that can rival Mickey Spillane or Mike Hammer in her toughness and wisecracking. Indemnity Only is the first V. I. Warshawski novel written by Pareksky. In this novel she finds herself employed by her client to find his son's missing girlfriend and instead finds the son,and he's dead. Soon she finds herself embroiled with union leaders, mob killings and insurance fraud, as well as continuing her hunt for the young woman whose life may be in jeopardy. This is a novel that will hold the interest of those of us from the babyboomer generation as we relate to Warshawkski's return to her college alma mater. Read this novel for a great introduction to V. I. Warshawski. Stuart M. Kaminsky, 1934-2009: Chicago author wrote detective series set around the globe - tribunedigital-chicagotribune Stuart M. Kaminsky, 1934-2009: Chicago author wrote detective series set around the globe October 13, 2009|By Trevor Jensen, TRIBUNE REPORTER Stuart M.

Kaminsky, a writer of impressive range who created four distinctive detectives for series set in Los Angeles, Chicago, Moscow and Florida, joined the elite of his craft in 2006 when the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master. A native of Chicago's West Side who decamped for Sarasota, Fla., in 1989 but maintained ties to his hometown, Mr. Kaminsky, 75, died of complications from hepatitis and a recent stroke Friday, Oct. 9, in Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, said his son Peter. Starting with "Bullet for a Star" in 1977, Mr. Kaminsky wrote more than 70 novels. He incorporated the names of his two sons for his first lead character, Toby Peters, a former movie lot security officer who prowled 1940s Hollywood on behalf of celebrity clients like Errol Flynn and Peter Lorre.

Leads in subsequent series were taken by Porfiry Rostnikov, a police inspector in Moscow; Abe Lieberman, a crusty but wise Chicago cop who works the streets with his younger partner, Bill Hanrahan; and Lew Fonesca, a former Cook County state's attorney investigator now operating as a cut-rate private eye in Sarasota. Mr. Kaminsky, who from 1972 until 1989 taught in the radio television and film program at Northwestern University, also wrote nonfiction books on film directors Don Siegel ("Dirty Harry"), Ingmar Bergman and John Huston, and actor-director Clint Eastwood. He supplied the dialogue for Sergio Leone's gangland epic "Once Upon a Time in America" and produced harrowing thrillers like "When the Dark Man Calls" and "Exercise in Terror." He also wrote novelized versions of the television shows "The Rockford Files" and "CSI." "He was incredibly productive as a writer, always exploring new forms and new ways to tell stories," said Chicago mystery writer Sara Paretsky, who credits Mr. Kaminsky with giving her career an early boost. Always generous with fledgling writers, Mr.

Kaminsky was a former president of the Mystery Writers of America and was active with the group's Midwest chapter. For a number of years, he spoke at annual "Dark and Stormy Night" workshops for mystery writers, said Chicago novelist Barbara D'Amato. "He did talk a lot about structure and plotting," D'Amato said. "He was careful to say they needed to work at it, write and rewrite, and there is no magic." In fall 1979, Paretsky attended his class on "Writing Detective Fiction for Publication" at Northwestern. He encouraged her to set her novels in the financial world because that's the field she was in at the time, read her manuscript and provided a connection to his agent and publishers. "I don't think it's overstating it to say I owe my career to him," said Paretsky, author of 13 novels featuring female private investigator V.I. Warshawski. "A Cold Red Sunrise," part of the Porfiry Rostnikov series, won the 1989 Edgar Award for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America. As a Grand Master Award winner, Mr.

Kaminsky is among luminaries of the genre including Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard. Mr. Kaminsky graduated from Marshall High School and got a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, starting at the downstate campus and finishing in Chicago, his son said. He was an Army medic in the 1950s, when his family believes he got hepatitis C. He worked as a photographer with a Milwaukee newspaper, did university public relations and wrote for obscure trade publications. In 1972, he received his doctorate from Northwestern's School of Speech. An early novel was rejected as pretentious by an agent who told him he should stick to writing textbooks, his son said. "He stopped trying to write something moving and meaningful and important and just (went with) what was fun to write," his son said. "It worked." Mr. Kaminsky's first marriage ended in divorce, but he later married again. Other survivors include his wife, Enid Perll; another son, Toby; two daughters, Lucy and Natasha; his mother, Dorothy; a sister, Sara Rashkow; and three grandchildren. Services were held in St. Louis.

---------- Summary/Reviews: Blood shot / Blood shot / No Tags, Be the first to tag this record! Saved in: Staff View SUMMARY The fifth in Paretsky's praised series returns heroine Victoria (V.I.) Warshawski, lawyer/private detective, to describe mysterious circumstances arising from a seemingly insignificant case. Review by Publisher's Weekly Review The fifth and finest in Paretsky's praised series returns heroine Victoria (V. I.) Warshawski, lawyer/private detective, to describe mysterious circumstances arising from a seemingly insignificant case. A visit to a childhood friend in South Chicago, Caroline Djiak, ends with Warshawski agreeing to look for the father Caroline never knew and whom neither her mother Louisa, although she's dying, or maternal grandparents will name. Almost at once, however, Caroline begs the detective to stop the search. She is badly frightened when a co-worker in a neighboring recycling plant is murdered, but Warshawski won't quit the investigation now that she suspects criminals have a bigger motive for killing than keeping the father's identify secret. The decision to fight on entangles V. I.

with the powerful owner of a chemical company and his minionsa venal doctor who falsifies employee records, South Chicago's corrupt alderman, a gangster profiteer with a stranglehold on the city's trash collectionsand thugs hired to kill ``the snoop.'' It's a gripping, entertaining story, although sobering as a warning against thieving officials who pollute natural resources and rob the public. Mystery Guild dual main selection; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections. (September) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved AUTHOR NOTES Author Sara Paretsky was born in Ames, Iowa on June 8, 1947. She received a degree in political science from the University of Kansas and ultimately completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago; her dissertation was entitled "The Breakdown of Moral Philosophy in New England Before the Civil War." She also earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. She married a professor of physics (University of Chicago). The protagonist of all but two of Paretsky's novels is V.I. Warshawski, a female private investigator. V. I.

Warshawsky shows a female detective succeeding a traditionally male role. Paretsky has won numerous awards for her work including the Silver Dagger Award for Toxic Shock, the Gold Dagger award for Blacklist, and the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers Association. Her title Brush Back made the New York Times Best Seller List in 2015. (Bowker Author Biography) Sara Paretsky's Novels | Author Sara Paretsky Breakdown Carmilla, Queen of the Night, is a shape-shifting raven whose fictional exploits thrill girls all over the world. When tweens in Chicago's Carmilla Club hold an initiation ritual in an abandoned cemetery, they stumble on an actual corpse, a man stabbed through the heart in a vampire-style slaying. Body Work, by Sara Paretsky “Doctors take days off—why not P I’s?” V I Warshawski demands. But when America’s hardest-working private eye goes clubbing, a stranger is shot, and dies in V I’s arms. V I has been visiting Club Gouge, Chicago’s edgiest night spot, where a woman known as the Body Artist turns her naked body into a canvas for the audience to paint on.

The show attracts all kinds of people, from a menacing off-duty cop, to Ukrainian mobsters, Iraqi war vets—and V I’s impetuous cousin Petra. A tormented young painter shows up, too, and the intricate designs she creates on the Body Artist drives one of the vets into a violent rage. Hardball, by Sara Paretsky When V. I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who’s been missing for four decades, a search that she figured would be futile becomes lethal. Old skeletons from the city’s racially charged history, as well as haunting family secrets—her own and those of the elderly sisters who hired her—rise up to brush her back from the plate with a vengeance. more » Bleeding Kansas Bleeding Kansas centers on the Grelliers and the Schapens, two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over a 150 years, and how their lives are affected by war and by the changing sexual and religious mores of the day. more » Fire Sale 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. more » Black List Eager for physical action in the spirit-numbing wake of 9/11, VI Warshawski is glad to take on a routine stake-out for her most important client, Darraugh Graham. His ninety-one year-old mother has sold the family estate, but Geraldine Graham keeps a fretful eye on it from her retirement apartment across the road. When Geraldine sees lights there in the middle of the night, Darraugh sends V I out to investigate—and the detective finds a dead journalist in the ornamental pond. more » Total Recall When a man claiming to be a survivor of the Nazi death camps seeks out his family among Lotty Herschel’s circle of friends, he forces her to confront a memory from the war she has long refused to think about. As a frightened V I watches her longtime friend and mentor unravel, she comes to Lotty’s help in the only way she know how—by investigating the survivor’s past.

more » Hard Time Among the first, and perhaps the most compelling, female private investigators of contemporary fiction, Sara Paretsky's incomparable character V I Warshawski at last returns to the page in her first full-length appearance since 1994's Tunnel Vision. Hard Time is the work of a master--a riveting novel of suspense that is indisputably Paretsky's best V I Warshawski novel yet. more » Ghost Country The gritty adventures of V I Warshawski have made the Chicago PI a marquee name among today's sleuths and turned her creator, Sara Paretsky, into one of the mystery world's most popular authors. So it's rather surprising that Paretsky risks her commercial success with a new book that veers sharply from the sure-bet Warshawski series. But Paretsky's latest may be her best book yet; it shows amazing depth and emotion, offers richly complex characters and a stunningly original plot, and provides subtle but caustic commentary on today's social problems. more » Tunnel Vision Her office building is falling down, the unpaid bills are mounting up. V I Warshawski needs a lucrative case and needs it fast.

Instead, her most important client demands that she find a community service job to keep his computer-hacking son out of jail. more » Guardian Angel Racine Avenue is going upscale—bad news for hand-to-mouth residents like V I Warshawski. As tax bills skyrocket, newcomers pressure old inhabitants into fixing up their homes or moving out. To the yuppies on the block the worst eyesore belongs to old Hattie Frizell, whose yard is “returning to native prairie, complete with hubcaps.” Their block club wants her and her five dogs gone. more » Burn Marks “Victoria, sweetie, you look terrific!” With those words—and the sour yeasty smell of stale beer—Elena, V I Warshawski’s derelict aunt, re-enters her niece’s life at three in the morning. Burned out of her SRO hotel, Elena has turned to V I for a place to stay. V I vows that it will be a short visit and uses some old political contacts to find Elena a room. more » Blood Shot In her fifth V I novel, Sara Paretsky brings the private investigator back to her old neighborhood and to the past she cannot escape.

Blood Shot begins innocently enough when V I attends the reunion of her championship basketball team and Caroline, a childhood friend who organized the event, asks V I a professional favor: “Find my father for me.” more » Bitter Medicine Bitter Medicine, V I’s fourth case, starts when a young friend goes into premature labor. V I and Consuelo are far from home. By the time Consuelo's doctor, young Malcolm Tregiere, arrives, both she and her baby are dead at the local for profit hospital. V I assumes this is a tragic but unavoidable outcome. However, when Dr. Tregiere is brutally murdered and V I begins to investigate, her work unleashes a trail of violence that leads her back to the hospital where Consuelo died. more » Killing Orders Killing Orders, V I Warshawski’s third adventure, starts when her great-aunt Rosa summons the detective to her cold suburban home. Rosa made V I’s childhood miserable and the detective resents the command to help her aunt prove she didn't embezzle five million dollars from a local Dominican priory. more » Deadlock Deadlock, V I Warshawski’s second case, involves the huge Great Lakes shipping industry.

Once again the subject is murder—this time the "accidental death" of Boom-Boom Warshawski, an ex-hockey star and V I’s beloved cousin, who fell—or was pushed—off a rain-slicked pier on Chicago’s busy waterfront. more »

Question: Which author wrote a series of books about the private investigator 'V.I. Warshawsky'?
Answer: SARAH PARETSKY