Sara Paretsky

The seventeenth V.I. Warshawski thriller from one of America's greatest female crime writers, combining contemporary issues, the fight for justice and fast-paced suspense.

Private Eye V.I. Warshawski is roused one morning by an SOS from a woman on a farm south of Chicago. When V.I. gets there, she finds no woman - but a dead man in a cornfield, his body savagely mutilated.V.I. is happy to leave the case to the local sheriff: it looks like a falling out among meth dealers. But back in Chicago, she learns that the missing woman is a protégée of her oldest friend and confidante, Dr Lotty Herschel, and is compelled to investigate. What V.I. uncovers pulls her into a world of nuclear secrets and high-stakes computing, with roots reaching back to the Second World War. The detective soon finds herself in a hall of mirrors where she can't tell reality from video games, and her life is on the line. For V.I., this is her most profound, and terrifying, adventure yet . . .

Sara Paretsky's new bestseller and the fifteenth in the series pits V.I. Warshawski against a right-wing political pundit with powerful connections in a riveting novel that combines contemporary issues and suspense in Paretsky's unique way.

The eleventh novel in the V.I. Warhawski crime series, set in Chicago, from prize-winning author Sara Paretsky.During a routine stake-out of a major client's former home, V.I. stumbles upon something she didn't expect to find: a body. The police immediately dismiss the victim as a drunken intruder, but V.I. sees things differently.Hired by the dead man's family to investigate, V.I. is lead back to the blacklists of the McCarthy era as well as into the murky operations of modern American government. Stopping at nothing in her quest for justice, V.I. soon discovers the perilous cost of bringing dark secrets to light . . .

'Grace Notes' sees V.I. delve into her family history after discovering a newfound Italian cousin, Vico. But what does Vico want after all this time? And what danger will it lead to?In 'The Pietro Andromache', V.I.'s friend Lotty Herschel finds herself in hot water when her rival is robbed and killed. Lotty ticks all the right boxes, but who's the real culprit?And in 'Strung Out', V.I. investigates the daughter of an old friend, suspected of murdering her father with a racket string . . .

When V.I.'s close friend Lotty Herschel is approached by a man claiming to be a fellow Holocaust survivor, she's forced to recall a painful past she's tried desperately to forget.Coming to Lotty's aid, V.I. decides to investigate the mysterious stranger. But her findings lead to the exposure of something much darker involving an international conspiracy reaching all the way back to Nazi Europe - as well as a shocking truth which could potentially devastate her friend . . .

While driving home after celebrating friend Murray Ryerson's big break into TV hosting, V.I. almost collides with a fatally wounded woman lying in the street.The deceased is Nicola Aguinaldo, former employee of security giant B.B. Baladine and recent prison runaway. Taking on the case, V.I. finds herself plunged into a sinister network of corruption that pits her against the police, the prison and the entertainment industry - with potentially lethal results.

The seventh novel in the V.I. Warhawski crime series, set in Chicago, from prize-winning author Sara Paretsky.V.I. Warshawski's Chicago neighbourhood is prospering. As it's out with the old and in with the new, long-term residents like elderly Hattie Frizell find themselves viciously under threat . . .But that's not all that's troubling V.I. When the body of her neighbour's friend is found washed up in the Sanitary Canal, her investigations lead her to uncover a world of corporate conspiracy and political corruption involving some of Chicago's most prestigious industrial players. And after several attempts on her life, it seems that this time, V.I. may have dug too deep . . .

V.I. Warshawski receives an unwelcome shock when her aunt Elena arrives on her doorstep in the middle of the night, having fled from her burning hotel. But things go from bad to worse when Elena mysteriously vanishes and the corpse of her aunt's friend is discovered at a construction site.As V.I.'s investigation plunges her deep into the workings of the construction industry and county politics, she finds herself part of a dangerous game of corruption where her life is the prize. Someone's out to silence her, and they won't stop until they do . . .

The discovery of a destitute family in her office basement leads V.I. Warshawski to homeless charity Home Free. But the organisation's frosty reception gives V.I. cause for concern, especially when one of its board members is then found murdered, sprawled across her desk . . .Taking on the case, V.I. uncovers a framework of domestic abuse and fraud which spreads across the whole of Chicago, as well as into the abandoned tunnels beneath the city streets - where more dark secrets have been buried . . .

When V.I. Warshawski is asked to search for the father of a childhood friend, she assumes it'll be a straightforward case. But the return to her old Chicago neighbourhood reignites dark memories from her past - memories she'd sooner forget.As the body of another old friend suddenly turns up, V.I. finds herself embroiled in a dangerous quest for justice which pits her against the bosses of big business and industrial corruption. It's one of her toughest and most personal cases yet, one from which she may not emerge entirely unscathed . . .

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 her at the tangled center of the investigation. And the girls include daughters of some of Chicago's most powerful families: the grandfather of one, Chaim Salanter, is among the world's wealthiest men; the mother of another, Sophy Durango, is running for the United States Senate. For V.I., the questions multiply faster than the answers. Is the killing linked to a hostile media campaign against Durango--or to Salanter's childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania? As V.I. struggles to find an answer, she finds herself fighting enemies who are no less terrifying for being all too human.

Club Gouge: Chicago's edgiest night spot, where a woman calling herself the Body Artist invites the audience to use her naked body as a canvas.The show attracts all kinds of people, from a menacing cop to Ukrainian mobsters and Iraq war veterans. A tormented young painter comes too, and the designs she creates on the Body Artist drive one of the soldiers into a violent rage.When the painter is shot, the police assume the shell-shocked veteran went off the rails. But his family hires V.I. to clear his name - and the detective discovers a chain of ugly truths stretching from Iraq to Chicago's South Side.

"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 back from the war. And tonight, V.I. Warshawski is in the crowd too. The edgy stage show stars The Body Artist, who invites audience members to draw on her naked flesh. But things get a lot edgier when a woman sketches a picture on the Body Artist--and one of the veterans flies into a drunken rage. Next thing V.I. knows, she's cradling the woman's dying body in an alley, and a PTSD-stricken soldier is presumed guilty. But he's also comatose after a drug overdose, and the mystery of what exactly set him off--and what kinds of shady activities are really happening at Club Gouge--will lead V.I. to a truth as explosive as the IEDs that lurk on the roadsides of Iraq. Bonus in this Edition: A Short Story Featuring V.I. Warshawski

One of the Sunday Times 100 Best Crime Novels and Thrillers since 1945When V.I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who's been missing for four decades, a search that she thought would be futile turns lethal. Old skeletons from the city's racially charged history rise up to force her back with a vengeance - a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence, and on the city's South Side, people spit when she shows up. The elderly sisters who hired her are also keeping important information to themselves. Then V.I. finds that her family is keeping secrets of their own. A young cousin whom she's never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign, but disappears under mysterious circumstances. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, deception and corruption following her at every step, V.I. finds all her certainties under threat, but takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.

A revealing look at the power of speaking out, Writing in an Age of Silence describes Paretski's coming of age in a time of great possibility, during the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and the women's movement. Bestselling crime-writer Sarah Paretsky has won critical acclaim for her V.I. Warshawski novels, centered around one of the first and most popular female investigators in contemporary fiction. In this fascinating and personal account, Paretsky describes a life shaped by the desire to act. From the feminist movement-which triggered her aspirations to write and shaped the character of her female detective-to the Patriot Act and the liberties we have lost, Paretsky describes the struggle of one individual to find a voice. A moving call to action, Writing in an Age of Silence chronicles the social changes that have shaped contemporary America, and mirrors a desire for freedom, both personal and political, that many Americans will relate to today.

The Grelliers and the Schapens are two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over a hundred and fifty years, their lives connected through the generations by history and geography. Gina Haring, bringing with her the liberal air of the big city, moves into a dilapidated house near both families' properties. Gina has secrets, her own reasons for being in the Kansas countryside, and they're not necessarily what the people around her imagine. Susan's involvement with her stirs up the wrath of the Schapen clan - and has cataclysmic results for her own family.

Consuelo is sixteen, heavily pregnant and married to an unemployed gangster. The last thing she needs is a negligent doctor.When she is rushed into the Friendship private hospital, the staff are reluctant to treat her. Fortunately she has Vic Warshawski, family friend and ex-lawyer, with her.But Consuelo and her baby are the tragic victims of a system so corrupt that it pays her husband to keep quiet. Anyone who can discover anything about the unorthodox dealings of the Friendship is in danger. And Vic's investigations are just about to begin . . .

Years ago V.I. Warshawski's Aunt Rosa treated the detective's beloved mother in an unforgiveable way. Now, after she's accused of stealing $3 million from the Dominican priory where she works, Rosa calls upon the ties of blood to clear her name.V.I. is not prepared to forgive so easily. Until suddenly no one else - the FBI, a threatening phone caller, and even Aunt Rosa herself - appears to want her on the case either. V.I. turns to an old friend for help. But the stakes are higher than she could have realised . . .

The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story. David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.