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V.I. Warshawski

This series follows the adventures of a private investigator navigating the gritty streets of Chicago. She tackles complex cases that delve into the city's underbelly and the complexities of human nature. Each installment is packed with suspense, intrigue, and a fiercely independent female lead who isn't afraid to confront danger. These stories offer classic detective noir with a contemporary edge and a strong sense of place.

Burn Marks
Toxic Shock
Bitter Medicine
Killing Orders
Deadlock
Indemnity Only

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    Indemnity Only

    • 240 pages
    • 9 hours of reading
    3.9(14675)Add rating

    The vice-president of a Chicago bank hires V.I. Warshawski to find his son. She's pleased. The head of the International Brotherhood of Knifegrinders hires her to find his daughter. She's not so pleased. Who's the boss in this dangerous game of insurance fraud, murder contracts and gunmen?

    Indemnity Only
  2. 2

    “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 TribuneWhen Chicago Black Hawks hockey legend Boom Boom Warshawski slips off a wharf and drowns in Lake Michigan, his private-eye cousin questions the accidental death report and rumors of suicide. Armed with a bottle of Black Label and a Smith & Weson, V.I. follows a trail of violence and corruption to the center of the Windy City's powerful shipping industry. Dodging elaborate attempts on her life with characteristic grit and humor, the one-of-a-kind detective wends her way through a maze of grain elevators and thousand-ton freighters, ruthless businessmen and gorgeous ballerinas, to ferret out Boom Boom's killers before they phase her out of the picture—permanently.“Hard-boiled detective fiction . . . a swift-paced and engrossing read.”— The Philadelphia Inquirer“Slithers with suspense!”— Chicago Sun-Times

    Deadlock
  3. 3

    Killing Orders

    • 368 pages
    • 13 hours of reading
    3.9(3214)Add rating

    When Detective V.I. Warshawski begins an investigation of a three million dollar theft from a monastery, acid is thrown in her face, and she suspects she might be taking on the Vatican, the Mafia, and an international conglomerate.

    Killing Orders
  4. 4

    Bitter Medicine

    • 320 pages
    • 12 hours of reading
    3.9(3983)Add rating

    In this novel, Vic Warshawski, heroine of Indemnity Only, Deadlock and Killing Orders, investigates Chicago's private hospital system. Through her friend Lotty Herschel, a top obstetrician who runs a clinic in a poor neighbourhood, Vic takes an interest in Consuela, 16 years old and pregnant.

    Bitter Medicine
  5. 5

    Toxic Shock

    • 320 pages
    • 12 hours of reading
    4.1(8750)Add rating

    Vic Warshawski agrees to investigate the paternity of Caroline Djiak, whose mother, Louisa, is dying. Following some leads, Vic visits Louisa's old workplace, the Xerxes Chemical Plant. What she finds is corruption and cruelty on a horrifying scale, where profit has more value than human life.

    Toxic Shock
  6. 6

    Burn Marks

    • 416 pages
    • 15 hours of reading
    3.9(3582)Add rating

    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 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 case—by hook, by crook, or by homicide. “One gritty good read . . . V.I. is a worthy heir to Marlowe!”—Daily News (New York)

    Burn Marks
  7. 7

    Guardian Angel

    • 432 pages
    • 16 hours of reading
    3.8(2965)Add rating

    After her golden retriever has puppies, and her yuppie neighbors put them to sleep while dog-sitting, V.I. uncovers a corporate network of murder and corruption

    Guardian Angel
  8. 8

    Tunnel Vision

    • 496 pages
    • 18 hours of reading
    3.9(3550)Add rating

    Private Eye Vic Warshawski is in a professional and personal mess. What she needs is a lucrative case. What she doesn't need are the woes of a homeless family, a love-sick teenage computer hack - and a dead body slumped across her desk.

    Tunnel Vision
  9. 9

    Hard Time

    • 419 pages
    • 15 hours of reading
    4.0(5365)Add rating

    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 scramble to stay employed. Reporter Murray Ryerson, V.I.'s longtime friend and sometime rival, manages to reinvent himself as the host of a television show on Global's network. On her way home from a party celebrating Murray's debut, V.I. almost runs over a woman lying in the street. Stopping to help, V.I. soon learns that her Good Samaritan act will drop her squarely in a boiling intrigue. In a case that forces her to go head-to-head with one of the world's largest providers of private security and prison services, a case that exposes dark hidden truths behind the razzle-dazzle of the entertainment industry, V.I. will be ahead of the game if she gets out alive.

    Hard Time
  10. 10

    Total Recall

    • 560 pages
    • 20 hours of reading
    3.9(2955)Add rating

    V.I.'s friend is in terrible danger - from both past crimes and present evil . . . Lotty Herschel is more than just a friend to Vic Warshawski - she is a mentor. A Holocaust survivor, Lotty has built a good life for herself. So when a man with recovered memories of a childhood strikingly similar to her own starts to plague Lotty, V.I. - working on a difficult fraud case - tries to help in the only way she can: by examining his murky past. Struggling to decide who she can trust, V.I. is caught in a mystery that stretches from Switzerland and Germany to Chicago's South Side, and across many decades. As she digs deeper, V.I. moves closer to a shocking truth - a truth that could destroy her oldest friend. And may have fatal consequences for others . . .

    Total Recall
  11. 11

    V.I. Warshawski: Blacklist

    A V.I. Warshawski Novel

    • 458 pages
    • 17 hours of reading
    3.7(177)Add rating

    Every new Sara Paretsky novel is an event, the chance to re-encounter her beloved heroine, V. I. Warshawski - ""a private eye with the sharpest tongue and hardest head in Chicago"" (The New York Times Book Review) - a cause for rejoicing. But Blacklist is something special. This is a story of secrets and betrayals that stretch across four generations - secrets political, social, sexual, financial: all of them with the power to kill. Eager for something physical to do in the spirit-exhausting wake of 9/11, V.I. accepts a request from an old client to check up on an empty family mansion; subsequently surprises an intruder in the dark; and, giving chase, topples into a pond. Grasping for something to hold on to, her fingers close around a lifeless human hand. It is the body of a reporter who had been investigating events of forty-five years earlier, during the McCarthy era, and V. I.s discovery quickly sucks her into the history of two great Chicago families their fortunes intertwined by blood, sex, money, and the scandals that may or may not have resulted in murder all these years later. At the same time, she inadvertently becomes involved in the story of a missing Egyptian boy whose possible terrorist connections make him very much sought after by the government. As the two cases drive her forward - and then shockingly tumble together, pushing her into situations more perilous than she could have imagined - she finds that wealth and privilege, too, bear a terrible price; and the past has no monopoly on patriotic scoundrels. Before everything is over, at least two more people will lie dead... and V.I. might even be one of them."

    V.I. Warshawski: Blacklist
  12. 12

    Fire Sale

    • 528 pages
    • 19 hours of reading
    4.0(4532)Add rating

    Coaching the basketball team at her former South Chicago high school, V.I. Warshawski investigates sabotage at the site of the area's largest employer, where an explosion has killed the facility's owner and launched a dangerous family rivalry.

    Fire Sale
  13. 13

    Hardball

    • 446 pages
    • 16 hours of reading
    3.7(34)Add rating

    How do you look for someone who vanished four decades ago? And how do you deal with the news that your father might have been a cop on the take? Ask V.I. Warshawski.

    Hardball
  14. 14

    Body Work

    • 576 pages
    • 21 hours of reading
    3.9(49)Add rating

    The story features V.I. Warshawski, a sharp and resilient private investigator known for her intelligence and sarcasm. In "Body Work," she navigates a complex mystery that delves deeper than a typical whodunnit, exploring the motivations behind the crime. The narrative strikes emotional chords, offering a thought-provoking experience that lingers in the reader's mind long after the conclusion.

    Body Work
  15. 15

    When the teenage daughters of some of Chicago's most influential families discover the body of a ritually murdered victim, investigator Warshawski explores theories that the killing is linked to a hostile media campaign against a senatorial candidate or a wealthy patriarch's childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania

    Breakdown
  16. 16

    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 protegee 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 ...

    Critical Mass
  17. 17

    Brush Back

    • 546 pages
    • 20 hours of reading
    3.8(2474)Add rating

    Chicago’s V. I. Warshawski confronts crooked politicians and buried family secrets in this gritty mystery from New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky. No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a fight, but she’d happily avoid tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet that’s what she ends up doing when she responds to a plea for help from an old high school flame, Frank Guzzo. Frank’s mother Stella was convicted of killing his kid sister, but now that she’s out of prison, she’s looking for exoneration. Even though the Warshawskis and Stella never got along, V. I. agrees to make a few inquiries after she sees how hard life has been on Frank and her other childhood friends. Only, that small favor leads her straight into the vipers’ nest of Illinois politics—and soon her main question isn’t about Stella’s case but whether or not she’ll make it out of this investigation alive... A Washington Post Best Mystery of 2015 Includes a Bonus Short Story!

    Brush Back
  18. 18

    Fallout is the best yet in one of our genre's crucial, solid-gold, best-ever series. Paretsky is a genius, and she's never afraid to dig a little deeper. Lee Child

    Fallout
  19. 19

    Shell Game

    • 400 pages
    • 14 hours of reading
    3.8(39)Add rating

    Sara Paretsky follows her instant New York Times bestseller Fallout—her most widely read novel in years—with an extraordinary adventure that pits her acclaimed detective, V.I. Warshawski, against some of today’s most powerful figures. Legendary sleuth V.I. Warshawski returns to the Windy City to save an old friend’s nephew from a murder arrest. The case involves a stolen artifact that could implicate a shadowy network of international criminals. As V.I. investigates, the detective soon finds herself tangling with the Russian mob, ISIS backers, and a shady network of stock scams and stolen art that stretches from Chicago to the East Indies and the Middle East. In Shell Game, nothing and no one are what they seem, except for the detective herself, who loses sleep, money, and blood, but remains indomitable in her quest for justice.

    Shell Game
  20. 20

    The edge-of-seat new crime novel featuring America's toughest and most caring private eye, V.I. Warshawski.

    Dead Land
  21. V.I. for Short

    • 256 pages
    • 9 hours of reading
    3.9(2033)Add rating

    This volume contains nine stories about V.I. Warshawski in which the private eye uses her judgement, skills and intuition to get the better of her adversaries. Playing on the themes of family, honour, trust and friendship, she proves that the truth can usually be bought to light.

    V.I. for Short