Books like Deadlock by Sara Paretsky

Private investigator Kinsey Millhone is summoned to Floral Beach, California, to prove the innocence of fugitive Bailey Fowler, the accused of a teenage girl's murder, amid town gossip, hidden revelations, and new threats.

Sue Grafton's mystery series follows private investigator Kinsey Millhone as she navigates the dark secrets of a powerful California construction family, where money, betrayal, and murder intertwine.

Chicago private investigator V.I. Warshawski receives a mysterious client who claims to be banker John Thayer, but the truth turns into a dangerous hunt for a missing girl and a dead son's secret identity.

When a teenage diabetic mother and her premature baby die, V.I. Warshawski investigates medical malpractice and a series of murders linked to a women’s clinic, confronting a deadly cover‑up in Chicago.

Chicago politics—past, present, and future—take center stage in New York Times–bestselling author Sara Paretsky’s brilliant new V. I. Warshawski novel.Chicago’s unique brand of ball is sixteen-inch slow pitch, played in leagues all over the city for more than a century. But in politics, in business, and in law enforcement, the game is hardball.When V. I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who’s been missing for four decades, a search that she figured would be futile becomes lethal. Old skeletons from the city’s racially charged history, as well as haunting family secrets—her own and those of the elderly sisters who hired her—rise up to brush her back from the plate with a vengeance. A young cousin whom she’s never met arrives from Kansas City to work on a political campaign; a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence; and on the city’s South Side, people spit when she shows up. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop, V. I. still takes the investigation all the way to its frightening end.

Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator, is hired to uncover the truth behind the suspicious death of a sheriff in Santa Teresa, California.

Detective V.I. Warshawski returns to her South Chicago roots to uncover a hidden father, only to expose a chemical‑industry conspiracy that endangers all involved.

Regan Reilly, a private investigator and daughter of a famed mystery writer, is drawn aboard the Queen Guinevere to solve the murder of her former roommate, navigating secrets, lovers, and a hidden killer on a transatlantic cruise.

V.I. Warshawski uncovers a covert corporate network of murder and corruption while caring for her golden retriever’s puppies— a mystery that grips the streets of Chicago.

V.I. Warshawski reluctantly probes a cherry‑pie charity for the homeless, only to discover a board member’s murder that uncovers financial fraud spiraling from Chicago banks to Washington halls, forcing her to choose between personal happiness and justice.

V. I. Warshawski investigates a dead reporter in a ghostly Chicago mansion, uncovering ties to two powerful families and a missing boy linked to terrorist activity.

V.I. Warshaki investigates a shattered, abandoned woman in Chicago, leading her from a wealthy family’s troubles to Hollywood glamour and a women’s prison, the hardest case of her career.

Detective V.I. Warshawski coaches her alma‑mater’s girls’ basketball team, only to become embroiled in a mystery at the multinational retailer By‑Smart when a teenage grandson vanishes with a prized document, sending her on a perilous Chicago road to uncover dark secrets.