V.I. WARSHAWSKI: A BBC RADIO COLLECTION

BODY WORK

Private eye V I Warshawski goes out one night to Chicago's edgiest night spot, where a woman known as the Body Artist turns her naked body into a canvas for the audience to paint on. When a painter is shot, the police think it's a clear-cut case: a shell-shocked war veteran goes off the rails. But the soldier's family hires Warshawski to clear his name, and she soon uncovers a chain of ugly truths that stretches all the way from Iraq to Chicago's South Side.

BREAKDOWN

When the teenage daughters of some of Chicago's most influential families discover the body of a ritually murdered victim, investigator Warshawski explores theories that the killing is linked to a hostile media campaign against a senatorial candidate or a wealthy patriarch's childhood in Nazi-occupied Lithuania.

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 sheriff: it looks like a falling out among meth dealers. But back in Chicago, she learns that the missing woman is a protégée of her oldest friend and confidante, Dr Lotty Herschel, and is compelled to investigate. What V.I. uncovers pulls her into a world of nuclear secrets and high-stakes computing, with roots reaching back to the Second World War. The detective soon finds herself in a hall of mirrors where she can't tell reality from video games, and her life is on the line. For V.I., this is her most profound, and terrifying, adventure yet . . .

FIRE SALE

South Chicago is a neighbourhood private investigator V I Warshawski left a long time ago. Now she's back, drawn to the streets of her childhood, to do a favour for a friend, but when the mother of a local girl asks her to look into claims of sabotage at the factory where she works, V I quickly finds herself caught up in something far more sinister.

HARDBALL

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. With 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.

KILLING ORDERS

When Detective V I Warshawski begins an investigation of a three million dollar theft from a monastery, acid is thrown in her face, and she suspects she might be taking on the Vatican, the Mafia, and an international conglomerate. And when a friend who's involved in the case is brutally murdered, Vic turns to an old friend for help. But the stakes are higher than she could have realised....

OVERBOARD

On her way home from an all-night surveillance job, V.I. Warshawski's dogs lead her on a mad chase that ends when they find a badly injured teen hiding in the rocks along Lake Michigan. The girl only regains consciousness long enough to utter one enigmatic word. V.I. helps bring her to a hospital, but not long after, she vanishes before anyone can discover her identity. As V.I. attempts to find her, the detective uncovers an ugly consortium of Chicago power brokers and mobsters who are prepared to kill the girl before V,I. can save her. And soon it becomes clear that V.I.'s own life is in jeopardy as well.

TOXIC SHOCK

A paternity case leads PI Vic Warshawski into investigating something more sinister: her simple enquiries at the Xerxes chemical plant meet with closed doors and ignoring warnings from high places, Vic digs deeper and finds a story of corruption and cruelty on a horrific scale, where profit has more value than human life.