SHAMUS AWARD Finalist
Best Paperback Original

ANTHONY AWARD Finalist
Best Paperback Original

She should have taken a check. She should have had it in writing. And she should have gotten away before the cops entered the picture and charged her with murder.

But P.I. and B&E speciallist Ronnie Ventana had gone ahead and done the job-for cash--testing the security system of a house in Presidio Heights. She got into the house, all right. But it was a house with a dead senator in the upstairs bathroom.

When Ronnie discovers that the woman who hired her was a fake--and has now vanished--her only hope is the senator's mentally retarded grandson. He was at the scene of the murder too. But someone has snatched the boy, and sent Ronnie into a labyrinth of false identities and buried motives from the Tenderloin to the Hall of Justice. Hidden in thisnot very pretty picture is one person with a fierce grudge--and one way out of the perfect frame...

"White's lively and redoubtable sleuth makes splendid company." -Publishers' Weekly