Hardball: V.I. Warshawski 13

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 her back with a vengeance a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence, and on the city's South Side, people spit when she shows up. The elderly sisters who hired her are also keeping important information to themselves. Then V.I. finds that her family is keeping secrets of their own. A young cousin whom she's never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign, but disappears under mysterious circumstances. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, deception and corruption following her at every step, V.I. finds all her certainties under threat, but takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.

About the Author :
Sara Paretsky is the author of fifteen books, including twelve V I Warshawski novels. She is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers, Association and the CWA Gold Dagger for Blacklist.

Review :
Sara Paretsky is on top form . . . HARDBALL is a haunting novel, skilfully combining power politics and intensely personal events - Joan Smith, Sunday Times HARDBALL is a standout . . . an ambitious novel, layered in the grit of recent American racial history - National Public Radio, USA V.I. Warshawski, one of fiction's best female sleuths - Saga Within a racial melting pot, Paretsky hits her own personal best; HARDBALL takes the thinking woman's detective to a new level of excellence - Financial Times Weekend The author's skill in tackling these topics [politics & feminism] in a subtle way is impressive, and the fact that she manages to couch it all in a breakneck-thriller plot is testament to her skill as a storyteller. - Big Issue on HARDBALL Paretsky has evoked - and celebrated - the multiplicity of Chicago's neighbourhoods, its old and new immigrants and its tragic history of race relations; and these years of America's financial and political decadence seem to have rekindled her passion for social justice. - Times Literary Supplement HARDBALL is a big, chewy, old-fashioned yarn about a P.I. looking into a sprawling, decade-spanning web of police corruption. But when it's this entertaining, there's nothing wrong with that at all - Metro Another hard hitting thriller by a doughty crusader - Literary Review