[2] Victoria Iphigenia Warshawski, called "Vic" by her friends, is the daughter of Italian-born Gabriella Sestrieri, who was half-Jewish and fled the Mussolini regime in 1941.

She was involved in the girls' basketball team in her school, called "The Lady Tigers", and entered the University of Chicago on a sports scholarship.

After earning a law degree and working a short stint as a public defender, she became a private detective specializing in white-collar crime.

There are the "bread and butter" clients who offer her fairly routine private detective jobs, which usually do not carry too much personal risk, and who pay promptly her full rates.

She often ends up pursuing cases that affect her friends, estranged family, or those who she feels are being bullied by the wealthier and more powerful of Chicago.

She repeatedly uncovers and confronts major combinations of crooked business people and corrupt politicians, much more powerful than she, and emerges with at least a partial victory.

Vic is described as a lean, athletic brunette who runs to keep in shape and does not fear physical confrontations, relying on karate or her Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol with its nine-round magazine.

[6][failed verification] Hot-tempered, sarcastic, and fiercely self-reliant, Vic prefers T-shirts and jeans, and sleeps in the nude, but she can dress stylishly if necessary.

She shares two golden retrievers, Peppy and Mitch, with her downstairs neighbor, Salvatore "Sal" Contreras - a WWII veteran who fought at Anzio, as well as being a retired trade unionist who took part in organizing militant strikes.

In addition to one failed marriage, Vic has had several lovers over the years, such as English insurance executive Roger Ferrant; Conrad Rawlings, a black Chicago police detective ; war correspondent and human rights activist C.L.

Her closest friend is Viennese physician Dr. Charlotte "Lotty" Herschel, who as a Jewish child escaped Nazi-Annexed Austria.

In one book she gets into head-on confrontation with a manifestly criminal Cardinal with the Church hierarchy solidly behind him, and whom the Chicago Police - with a preponderance of Irish and Polish Catholics - dare not touch.

The cases she works on often get her involved with ethnic minorities - Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and others - and she feels sympathy for illegal immigrants and occasionally gives them direct aid.

[1] The film, which took many creative liberties with Paretsky's character, was intended as a franchise for Turner but was not a commercial success, grossing $11.1 million[8] domestically.

The first two, Killing Orders and Deadlock, feature Kathleen Turner reprising her movie role, with Eleanor Bron as Dr. Charlotte “Lotty” Herschel.