Vincent "Vinnie" Van Lowe is a private investigator in Neptune, California and is the main competition for Keith and Veronica Mars.
Background[]
Vinnie has rather lax moral standards and is often willing to take on cases that the Mars Investigation team would refuse. It is because of this that he has a much larger caseload than the Mars family.
The cases that Vinnie Van Lowe takes on have sometimes helped the Mars family, but sometimes his work has been in opposition to the cases of Mars Investigations. In Kanes and Abel's, Veronica Mars is attempting to find out who has been harassing Sabrina Fuller, the School Board President's daughter, and one of the top candidates for the Kane Scholarship. The Kane Scholarship is a full scholarship named in honor of Lilly Kane awarded to the valedictorian of Neptune High. In her investigation, Veronica discovers that one of the cars that was used during a harassment was owned by Vinnie Van Lowe's ex-wife, Debra Villareal. From this she was able to figure out that Vinnie Van Lowe was the person hired to harass Sabrina.
In Donut Run Van Lowe was hired by Celeste Kane to watch Veronica because Celeste suspected that Veronica knew where Duncan took the kidnapped Manning baby. Veronica was able to take advantage of Vinnie's willingness to change clients if he is offered a better deal ("The Vinnie Classic"). Veronica had Duncan offer Vinnie more money to drive the Manning baby and a Veronica look-alike over the Mexican border and to pick Duncan up in Mexico. It was because of this that Duncan was able to successfully escape authorities with the kidnapped baby.
In Not Pictured Vinnie and Keith team up to catch Woody Goodman. Vinnie had broken into the Goodman house and stole all their records. Vinnie was arrested, but got away with the records. Using his one phone call, he meets with Keith to get him to split the bounty. Vinnie gives the records and Keith gets the man.
In Welcome Wagon he almost gets Keith killed while working for Liam Fitzpatrick. However, in Of Vice and Men, Vinnie rescued Veronica and Meryl from serious danger from the Fitzpatricks when the two girls wander into the River Stix searching for Meryl's missing boyfriend.
He returns in the Veronica Mars (film), revealed to be bugging tablets and giving them out to celebrities to capture weird and embarrassing videos that he'd then post on the internet. Dick shows Veronica a video of James Franco desperately trying on skinny jeans and then hooks Veronica an appointment with James Franco and his assistant. Veronica reveals to them what the tablet had been doing and they play out a plan to meet up with the one that bugged the tablets. Veronica spots Vinnie with her camera and immediately knew he was responsible. Vinnie gives her the video feed from Carrie's tablet after she threatens to tell 50Cent's security where a video of 50Cent baking and singing afternoon delight came from.
Later in Season 4, Vinnie returns to solve a case for Amalia Maloof. The engagement ring, given to Tawny Carr by Alex Maloof, goes missing after the bombing at the Sea Sprite Hotel. Vinnie charges an exorbitant $6,000/day to find the ring. He never finds it and the case doesn't get solved.
Appearances[]
- Veronica Mars
- Film
