Charles McCaughan

Victoria "V.I" Warshawski is a Chicago based private detective who agrees to babysit for her new boyfriend; then he is murdered. Being the detective type, she makes the murder her next case. In doing so she befriends the victim's daughter, Kat, and together they set out to crack the case.

Regularly working alone undercover with a vice squad boss she dislikes as much as he dislikes her, Lottie Mason is living pretty much on the edge. An assignment helping out the Assistant D.A. may be the start of a serious relationship but then, tired and disillusioned after a job one night, she finds herself accepting a proposition in a bar that leads rapidly into a web of murder and deceit.

Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion, and hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rents, faithless partners, and dead-end careers.

Jack Casey used to be a hot-shot stock market whiz kid. After a disastrous professional decision, his life in the fast lane is over. He loses his nerve and joins a speed delivery firm which relies on bicycles to avoid traffic jams of San Francisco, is attracted to a fellow bicycler, Terri, and befriends Hector, a budding entrepreneur. Can Jack regain his nerve and his self-respect, and rebuild his life on a more sound basis?