Mona

Also published as Grifter's Game. The living was high and the pickings came easy--till my one wild love became my sweet, slow death. Clip artist, reamer, pigeon plucker--take your pick. They all spell confidence man. Hell--they all spell me, Joe Marlin. But then, by any other name I'd smell as sweet to bored women on the prowl--rich ladies with their baby blues tight shut and their pocketbooks wide open. That was my game--devil-may-care conning, fly-by-night living, skipped checks at plush hotels, fleeced suckers wherever I could make a touch, a well developed string of aliases. A great old life--the rolling stone gathering no moss, just the green stuff that counts. Then I met Mona--and fell like a ton of bricks, like some legendary lover ready to fight demons and dragons. Beautiful, wicked Mona--the girl who gave me a dream of a rose-covered cottage, and straight arrow living--and a nightmare involving the biggest clipping of them all--murder!