Guardian Angel — Sara Paretsky

Underneath V.I. Warshawski's wisecracking P.I. exterior lies a real pushover. When elderly neighbor Mr. Contreras asks her to look into a fellow union retiree's sudden disappearance, appearance, she says "yes" from her heart, not her head. And when a crotchety eighty-year-old dog-owner starts wrangling with a Yuppie-Come-Lately couple on their blue-collar street, again, it's V.I. to the rescue.

Only it all goes to hell in a handbasket when Mr. Yuppie turns out to be a lawyer in V.I.'s ex-husband's law firm, and the missing retiree turns up floating facedown in a canal. And now V. L's strapping on her shoulder holster to snoop into Chicago's labor unions and politicos because being on the side of the angels won't win her any halos ... but it's the perfect place for an encounter with violent death.