There are 22 books in the V.I. Warshawski series. The newest book is Pay Dirt .

Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V.I. Warshawski he's the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son's missing girlfriend. But V.I. soon discovers the real John Thayer's son - and he's dead.

As V.I. begins…

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'Who're you working for then, Warshawski?' 'My cousin.' 'Boom Boom? He's dead.' 'I know. That's why I'm working for him.'

Boom Boom's body was found floating near the docks, chewed up and spat out by a ship's propeller. More like brother and sister than cousins, Vic and Boom Boom looked…

3
Killing Orders

Killing Orders

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…

4
Bitter Medicine

Book cover of Bitter Medicine

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…

5
Blood Shot

Blood Shot

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,…

6
Burn Marks

Burn Marks
When her seedy and importunate Aunt Elena turns up on her doorstep at midnight, having been burned out of her old people's home, V.I. Warshawski is exasperated rather than curious. Her interest is aroused only when an old friend, now a rising politician, puts pressure on her not to investigate…

7
Guardian Angel

Guardian Angel

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…

8
Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision

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,…

9
Hard Time

Hard Time

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…

10
Total Recall

Total Recall

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…

11
Blacklist

Book cover of Blacklist

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.…

12
Fire Sale

Book cover of Fire Sale

Death, conspiracy and burning buildings - coming home wasn't meant to be like this.

A dangerous, depressed place reeking of bad memories, South Chicago is a neighbourhood private investigator V.I. Warshawski left a long time ago. But now she's back, drawn to the streets of her childhood once again to…

13
Hardball

Book cover of Hardball

One of the Sunday Times 100 Best Crime Novels and Thrillers since 1945

When 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…

14
Body Work

Book cover of Body Work

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…

15
Breakdown

Book cover of 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.

The girls…

16
Critical Mass

Book cover of Critical Mass

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…

17
Brush Back

Book cover of Brush Back
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…

18
Fallout

Book cover of Fallout

V.I. Warshawski's impossible god-daughter Bernie convinces her to look for August, a young film-maker who has disappeared. The evidence indicates that he has gone to Kansas in the company of Emerald, an older black movie actress who wants to film the story of her life. Her search takes V.I. from…

Winner of the Sue Grafton Memorial Award!

A Boston Globe Best Book of 2018!

Acclaimed detective V. I. Warshawski tackles a pair of perplexing cases involving those closest to her in this compelling and timely adventure that centers on some of the most divisive and pressing issues of our time…

20
Dead Land

Book cover of Dead Land

'A novel full of surprises... It's vintage Paretsky, and hard to put down' - The Sunday Times

Named Top 10 Thriller of 2020 by Kirkus

Chicago is the city of broad shoulders, but V.I. Warshawski knows its politics: "Pay to Play". Money changes hands in the middle of the night;…