The little bungalows that line the route are well kept up for the most part, although a few look pretty hopeless. Even though almost 50 percent of the population is out of work they still take pride in their homes and yards. And the Steel City and South Chicago banks, which hold most of their home mortgages, refinance them time and again. In themselves these banks make an amazing tourist attraction: what other big city in the world can boast of banks so committed to their community that they carry their customers through a prolonged period of trouble?

It is the gallantry of this old neighborhood that made me take it for the home of my detective, V. I. Warshawski. The gallantry, on the one hand, and the racial and ethnic mix that turned it into a volatile soup on the other. South Chicago was traditionally the first stop for new immigrants in Chicago. The mills, running three shifts a day, provided jobs for the unskilled and illiterate. The neighborhood has been home to Irish, Polish, Bohemian, Yugoslav, African, and most recently Hispanic Americans. As each new wave of immigrants arrived, the previous ones, with a fragile toehold on the American dream of universal prosperity, would fight to keep the newcomers out. The public schools were frequent arenas for real fights. Girls on South Chicago ’s streets either acquired boyfriends to protect them, or were carefully watched day and night by their parents, or learned the basics of street fighting to protect themselves. Even though V. I. grew up under the watchful eye of her mother, her father wanted her to be able to look after herself: as a police officer he knew better than most parents what dangers faced a girl who couldn’t fight for herself.

So V. I. came of age under the shadow of the mills, with weekend treks to Dead Stick Pond to watch the herons feed. She certainly knows Sonny’s Bar. Sonny’s has stood through all the waves of ethnic and racial change. It is a throwback to the days of the late great Mayor Daley. His icons hang on the walls and stand on shelves-signed photos of him with the original Sonny, signed photos of him with President Kennedy, campaign stickers, yellowing newspaper articles. A set of antlers over the bar obscures some of the memorabilia.