Burn Marks

“Victoria, sweetie, you look terrific!”

With those words—and the sour yeasty smell of stale beer—Elena, V.I. Warshawski’s derelict aunt, re-enters her niece’s life at three in the morning. Burned out of her SRO hotel, Elena has turned to V.I. for a place to stay. V.I. vows that it will be a short visit and uses some old political contacts to find Elena a room.

When V.I. is hired to investigate the fire at the hotel, her aunt disappears, and her aunt’s young friend is found …