Windy City Blues

Its strictly Friends Family as V.I. Warshawski, the detective mystery fans have been waiting for (Time), makes return appearances in a collection of stories that bring new meaning to ties that bind. Decked out in her silk shirts and no-nonsense attitude, V.I. is out to make a livingby the skin of her teeth.In Grace Notes, V.I. has barely finished her morning coffee when she sees an ad in the paper asking for information about her own mother, long dead. The paper leads V.I. to her newfound Italian cousin Vico, whos looking for music composed by their great-grandmother. Whats the score? Clearly its something to kill for...The Pietro Andromache finds V.I.s friend Dr. Lotty Herschel with motive and means to dispatch her professional rival and steal his priceless statue. Lotty didnt do itbut does she know who did? V.I. soon cuts to the art of the caseand its not a pretty picture at all!Summoned by an old high school friend to a race At the Old Swimming Hole, V.I. ends up swimming with the sharksthe FBI and a ruthless gambling kingpinin a pool of blood....And its only Skin Deep when a relaxing facial transformation transforms a client into a stiff. V.I.s pal Sal needs help. Her beautician sister Evangeline is prime suspectand V.I. has only eighteen hours to crack the case before its headline news....Three-Dot Po proves theres nothing like a dog. Especially a dog on the trail of her mistresss killer, with V.I. in tow....In Strung Out, love means nothing and V.I.s quick to learn the score as her old friends tennis-champion daughter is under suspicion for strangling her father with a racket string. And theres more, nine stories in all, in this masterful collection of short fiction starring V.I. Warshawski, the most engaging woman in detective fiction since Dorothy Sayerss Harriet Vane (Newsweek).