Rita should know that people assume you are what you appear to be, or she should have when the Mexican storekeeper won't take money for a sandwich, or when the street toughs beating up a young man take off when she shouts at them. But looking like a cop and being one are two different things, and while she's able to stop a killing right in front of her, she has no way to know that by just being there she's marked another cop for death.

Rita follows up on the boy that she saved, now in the hospital, by going to see his grandmother, Amaryllis Cubitt, the head of an urban mission that had helped her when she was on the ropes herself. The mission has changed though, with plenty of money and an ominous vibe that worries her. Rita asks her PI fiend George to look into it, which he does when he's not looking for a rich client's lost dog.

George warns Rita not to get to close to the mission, as he's getting more than ominous vibes from it, but she decides to go undercover and solve the mystery she's stumbled on. Fortunately she's got George for backup, because she's going to need it.

Rita's a fairly engaging main character, but she seems to spend a lot of time being willfully unaware of what's going on around her, lost in her own drama. This is handy for the author, who uses her straight ahead style to move her into precarious positions, but it does leave the reader wondering why she insists on doing things the hard way. Not to mention putting off George's advances, for the most part, though she's got no shortage of feelings for him as well.

Dames. Go figure.

All in all, it's a good series, and sooner or later we expect she'll wise up. If she doesn't get herself killed in the process.