By Marilyn Stasio Published: October 03, 1999  With HARD TIME
(Delacorte, $24.95), her first V. I. Warshawski novel in five
years, Sara Paretsky lightens up on the political oratory and
goes back to the basics that shot this terrific series to the
top of its class: an expertly plotted story drawn from the
legally trained author's specialty field of industrial
espionage; a topical issue to give it gravity and the moral
perspective to make it matter; a playing field of flint-hearted
villains impervious to these higher values; and a hero with the
righteous anger and the street-fighter skills to make these guys
eat dirt.  The volatile action takes off when Warshawski,
Paretsky's high-minded (and hot-tempered) Chicago private eye,
stops to help an accident victim and is railroaded on a
manslaughter charge. Chin out, V. I. battles a cover-up
conspiracy that she traces to a multimedia entertainment
conglomerate and the powerful security agency that guards its
secrets. But what does a rich man's Philippine nanny have