Synopses & Reviews
In this gripping adventure, the first V.I. Warshawski mystery, America's top private eye is tossed into dangerous adventure when a seemingly straightforward assignment becomes complicated and deadly.
Hired by a man who calls himself John Thayer, V. I.'s assignment is to find Thayer's son Peter's missing girlfriend. But when V.I. finds young Peter's dead body instead, her client disappears. Her efforts to track down her client and learn his true identity take her deep into a labyrinth of fraud and violence.
By the time V.I. figures out the answers she is in a race to find the missing young woman before the murderers do.
Review
"Not since crime-fiction masters Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet has a mystery writer integrated a character and an environment so seamlessly, to such telling, vibrant effect." Chicago magazine
Review
"Paretsky is a smooth writer and a funny woman, good at evoking seedy urban environments and taking wry potshots at middle-class aspirations....[She] has created a scrappy, entertaining, idiosyncratic fictional character who is a woman, so hooray for her!" San Jose Mercury-News
Synopsis
The first V.I. Warshawski novel - " V.I. Warshawski] is . . . wonderful company and a rich discovery awaiting those who have yet to meet her."--Los Angeles Times
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.