Bitter Medicine (Paperback, New Ed)

'Sit on her legs, Eddie.' Tattoo obliged. 'I don't want to ruin you in case you ever get a man, Warshawski, so I'm just going to leave a little reminder.' He took out a knife.

Vicious people are working hard to stop V. I. discovering the truth. She is trying, as usual, to help the vulnerable, and Consuelo Alvarado is just that. Pregnant by and married to Fabiano, a useless little punk with gang connections, Conseulo may have become the victim of a serious crime. When she goes into early labour family friend Vic Warshawski rushes her to a hospital - the Friendship Five hospital, obliged by law to provide emergency treatment to anyone regardless of ability to pay. But laws aren't always obeyed and tragedy strikes. Then one of the doctors who treated her is savagely murdered. And now Vic is up against both frightening violence and a wall of silence, as she tries to answer a dangerous and troubling question: how far will someone go to protect their bottom line?