The Importance of Being V.I.

Abstract

V.I. Warshawski, detective, comes to life in this crime fiction series and expressed in these pages are the elements that make her a significant study. She presents a new role model for women. She inhabits a setting which, heretofore, has been inhabited by males. V.I. follows an agenda not often used before in detective fiction, a moral system both drives and develops her. No matter which element we study, the one fact which remains with us is that in choosing to go by her initials, V.I. Warshawski becomes someone who must be identified through her behavior and her deeds, not labeled and judged by a feminine epithet.