Blacklist (novel)

Blacklist is a 2003 novel by crime writer Sara Paretsky. It features Private Investigator V. I. Warshawski, and was awarded the 2004 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger.
Plot.
Chicago private detective V.I. Warshawski is asked by a longtime client to look into his mother's suspicion that trespassers are living in the empty mansion her father built. V.I. discovers a corpse on the property that is found to be a young black journalist who was writing about members of a 1930s federal theater project and one member in particular that was blacklisted during the Communist witch hunt. V.I. is hired by the journalist's sister to investigate his death.