Chicago’s V. I. Warshawski confronts crooked politicians and
buried family secrets in the gritty new novel from New York
Times–bestselling author Sara Paretsky.
No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a
fight, but there are a few she’d be happy to avoid. High on
that list is tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet
that’s precisely what she ends up doing when she responds to
Frank Guzzo’s plea for help.
For six stormy weeks back in high school, V.I. thought she
was in love with Frank. He broke up with her, she went off
to college, he started driving trucks for Bagby Haulage. She
forgot about him until the day his mother was convicted of
bludgeoning his kid sister, Annie, to death. Stella Guzzo
was an angry, uncooperative prisoner and did a full
twenty-five years for her daughter’s murder.
Newly released from prison, Stella is looking for
exoneration, so Frank asks V.I. for help. V.I. doesn’t want
to get involved. Stella hated the Warshawskis, in particular
V.I.’s adored mother, Gabriella.
But life has been hard on Frank and on V.I.’s other
childhood friends, still stuck on the hardscrabble streets
around the dead steel mills, and V.I. agrees to ask a few
questions. Those questions lead her straight into the
vipers’ nest of Illinois politics she’s wanted to avoid.
When V.I. takes a beating at a youth meeting in her old
hood, her main question becomes whether she will live long
enough to find answers.
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