Money to Burn

She's a burglar's daughter-and a first-rate P.I. . . .And if the tools of Veronica Ventana's trade include a Ph.D. in lockpicking, thank her parents, the infamous Vintners, who made cat burglary a class act. It's 3:30 A.M. when Bink Hanover bursts into Ronnie's apartment reeking of liquor and fear. Outside are four Uzi-toting thugs and a femme fatale who have chased him to her door. Before you can say 'safe house,' Ronnie recruits Blackie Coogan, ex-boxer and over-the-hill P.I. Then she's off to find the woman Bink calls the 'Black Widow,' whose string of well-connected lovers have all come into sudden riches-and sudden death. It's a crime. And now Ronnie is bull's-eye in a nasty high-stakes game. From San Francisco's bedrooms to its boardrooms, she's racing to catch a killer-before the killer catches her.