When V.I. Warshawski, a tough-talking Chicago private eye, is hired by the 13-year-old daughter of a murdered ex-hockey star, she gets caught up in a plot involving money, murder and the Windy City's most notorious hoods.

Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing. Detective Lillian Pentecost and her assistant Willowjean "Will" Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what's in Bodine's head. As circumstances conspire to pull both investigators away from the case, the pair will have to go nose-to-nose with murderous...