Sara Paretsky

The teenage tennis star had a frighteningly brutal trainer--her father. So nobody cried when he got strangled in the women's locker room. Now V.I. Warshawski wants to clear the number one suspect--who was showering alone at the time in "Strung Out". And in "Skin Deep", after his trip to the salon the stranger wasn't looking so good. Maybe it was the poison facial. V.I. Warshawski tries a few new creams herself while she looks for somebody, anybody connected to this guy.

Crime is common ground for the twenty-one women writers in this extraordinary collection of contemporary mystery fiction. The voices here include professional crime solvers who take you from the mean streets of V.I. Warshawski's Chicago in a case of music and murder... to the California freeway where Kinsey Millhone's beloved VW skids into a shooting... to the gang-held turf of Sharon says mum's the word. And then there are mothers, grandmothers, battered wives, and social workers--ordinary wome... more info>>

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. Multimedia conglomerate Global Entertainment has purchased the Chicago Herald-Star, forcing the paper's staff to scrambl... more info>>

Sara Paretsky brings her incomparable storytelling brilliance to her most powerful Warshawski novel yet. Total Recall follows the Chicago P.I. on a road that winds back more than fifty years--and into an intricate maze of wartime lies, heartbreaking secrets, and harrowing retribution. 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 ha... more info>>

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 up sprawled across her desk. V.I., who had volunte... more info>>

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 not only finds out where all the bodies are buried--she stumbles onto a very new corpse. Now she's stirring up a deadly mix of big business and chemical corruption that may become a tox... more info>>

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 has brought Elena to V.I.'s doorstep. Uncovering an arsonist --and the secrets hidden behind Elena's boozy smile--will send V.I. into the seedy world of Chicago's homeless... into the Windy City's backroom deals and bedroom politics, where new schemers and old cronies team up to get V.I. off the ... more info>>

When a neighboring eighty-year-old dog owner turns up floating facedown in a canal shortly after an argument with a yuppie couple, V. I. Warshawski begins an investigation.

These are stories of P.I.s who keep guns in their handbagsâ€"or their bras, of crime victims, homeless women, and housewives whose ordinary lives take a brutal, sometimes fatal twist. This collection brings several brilliant international authors to American readers for the first time, including Amel Benaboura, Irina Muravyova, and Helga Anderle. Mystery fans will also enjoy new works by familiar voices Sara Paretsky, Elizabeth George, Amanda Cross, Ruth Rendell, Antonia Fraser, Frances Fyfield,... more info>>