“Victoria, sweetie, you look terrific!” With those words — and the sour yeasty smell of stale beer — Elena, V.I. Warshawski’s derelict aunt, re-enters her niece’s life at three in the morning. Burned out of her SRO hotel, Elena has turned to V.I. for a place to stay. V.I. vows that it will be a short visit and uses some old political contacts to find Elena a room. When V.I. is hired to investigate the fire at the hotel, her aunt disappears, and her aunt’s young friend is found dead at a construction site. V.I. is warned off the case by both a high-ranking police officer and a major Chicago developer — who also happens to be a close friend of the chairman of the Cook County Board. After three terrifying attempts on her life, V.
