Early autumn

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Sara Paretsky

A nagging conscience makes V.I. Warshawski agree to fill in as coach for the girls' basketball team at her South Side alma mater-which in turn leads her to the headquarters of By-Smart, the global retail empire where V.I. hopes to get some desperately needed funds for the struggling squad. But conscience seems to be in short supply at By-Smart...with the exception of Billy Bysen. He's the earnest teenage grandson of the chain's gruff, tight-fisted founder. And when Billy disappears-along with a mysterious document much desired by By-Smart's management team-V.I. is hurled onto a twisted, body-strewn path that runs through Chicago's dirtiest places, and reveals some of its dirtiest secrets.

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Elizabeth Gunn

Ambitious Tucson police detective Sarah Burke, still smarting from a painful divorce, tries to concentrate on a body found in a parking lot. The case takes a bizarre turn when Sarah's young niece, neglected by her substance-abusing mother, disappears. The search is complicated by interference from the drug ring the suspected murderers had been working for, and Sarah's romantic interest in a troubled colleague rebuilding his life after injury.

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Lawrence Sanders

A case which starts out with a missing cat suddenly turns much more serious and deadly when a woman is found brutally murdered.

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Loren D. Estleman

Detroit private investigator Amos Walker is hired to recover HDTV converter boxes stolen from a retailer whose shop also does vintage resale business. Before long, the case turns old school: both a suspect and the man who lost the boxes are murdered, and Walker ends up working with both the local police and the feds.