VENETIAN HOLIDAY

A female Raffles debuts in Venice and finds the water plenty hot.

A graduate student at Columbia takes Professor Paul Fujimori’s course in Italian Renaissance painting. Then, in the blink of an eye, she’s married to him. In another blink, she’s taking a second course with him in international art theft. But thieves and lovers have a way of falling out, and now Kate Fujimori’s in Venice, preparing to be larcenous on her lonesome. Working with the reliable Freddy Doloreux, master technician, Kate sees herself tucking a work of art under her arm and sashaying safely from the palazzo without breaking a sweat. Kate doesn’t know that a pair of rascally amateurs plan to steal the same work of art on the same night, causing all manner of complications. Nor does she know that the reliable Freddy will turn out to be a Judas. A vengeful enemy has bought him, and as a result Kate finds herself chased through the canals by a skilled and relentless hit man—and by a certain dour, handsome Italian police inspector with whom she’s somehow fallen in love.

A comedy/mystery that’s only fitfully funny. Still, saucy, spunky Kate, who can’t help being something of a sweetie, is hard to resist.