SOURCE: Brandt, Kate, and Paula Lichtenberg. “On the Case with V. I. and Kinsey.” Hotwire: The Journal of Women's Music and Culture 10, no. 1 (January 1984): 48-50.

In the following essay, Brandt and Lichtenberg compare the fictional detectives V. I. Warshawski and Kinsey Millhone created by authors Sara Paretsky and Grafton, respectively.

Chicago private investigator V. I. Warshawski has been kidnapped at gunpoint and beaten up by criminals several times. She was unconscious for six hours after her car crashed (the brake fluid had been drained); her back was burned when acid was thrown at her. Her face has been slashed with a knife; she's been shot at. She's been tied up and thrown into a polluted swamp, chased into icy Lake Michigan, and trapped in a burning building.

Kinsey Millhone, a private eye in Southern California, has been shot twice and abducted at gunpoint; injected with barbiturates; had her...