title: Brazen: A Valentino Mystery (Valentino Mysteries)
author:  Loren D. Estleman 
description: LOREN D. ESTLEMAN has written <i>Frames, Alone, Alive! </i>and more than seventy books all told. Winner of four Shamus Awards, five Spur Awards, and three Western Heritage Awards, he lives in Central Michigan.
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  Ru
  
  
  R th
  
  
  t les lsy
  
  
  l Bedde
  
  
  d d Fo
  
  
  d
  
  
  rcribly
  
  
  l Wedd
  
  
  d ed
  
  
  
  
  
  **PROLOGUE**
  
  
  
  
  
  Vicenzo Valentini stood for a long moment looking down at the set and
  
  
  cold features of the dead woman. His baby sister. She was only twenty-
  
  
  four. Her whole life ahead of her. But not any more. That life had been
  
  
  snuffed out like a candle in the mangled wreckage of a horrific car crash.
  
  
  And he’d been too late to stop it, to protect her. What felt like a granite
  
  
  block weighted down his insides.
  
  
  
  
  
  He should have followed his instincts and insisted that she come home
  
  
  weeks ago…if he had he would have realised how much danger she was
  
  
  in.
  
  
  
  
  
  That thought made his fists clench as pain and guilt surged through him,
  
  
  so strong that he shook with the intensity it took to not let it out in front
  
  
  of the anonymous morgue attendant. He’d been kept away deliberately. A
  
  
  crude ruse to ensure he didn’t come to check up on his sister. When he
  
  
  thought of how a