Body Work
Club Gouge: Chicago's edgiest night spot, where a woman calling herself the Body Artist invites the audience to use her naked body as a canvas.
The show attracts all kinds of people, from a menacing cop to Ukrainian mobsters and Iraq war veterans. A tormented young painter comes too, and the designs she creates on the Body Artist drive one of the soldiers into a violent rage.
When the painter is shot, the police assume the shell-shocked veteran went off the rails. But his family hires V.I. to clear his name - and the detective discovers a chain of ugly truths stretching from Iraq to Chicago's South Side.
Sara Paretsky, the author of the V.I. Warshawski novels, was named 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. She is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association and the CWA Gold Dagger for Blacklist.
Visit Sara's website, www.saraparetsky.com, find her on Facebook, www.facebook.com/SaraParetsky, and follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/Sara1982P.