No Safe Place

Chicago homicide detective Kate Delaney fiercely defends victims. Which is why — despite death threats — she's testifying to a federal grand jury about local police corruption. It's also why she's infuriated by the New Orleans police department's blasÉ attitude toward her estranged sister's death. But pursuing an investigation in a strange city means allying with someone who knows the territory. And the players. Someone with a total disregard for the rules.

As an ex-cop from a police family, New Orleans PI Nick Broussard knows that cops live by their own code. You don't rat out a fellow officer. The last thing he needs is some smart-mouthed, by-the-book outsider unknowingly injecting herself into his undercover search for the truth. Even worse is the way she conjures up visions of tangled sheets....

Nick and Kate's chase pits them against the criminal underworld of the sultry southern city. And as they peel away layers of deadly deception, they discover a dark secret too many are willing to kill to keep.

Publishers Weekly

Ross's return to the bayous of Louisiana sizzles with the sensuality and danger fans of her romantic thrillers have come to expect, as Chicago detective Kate Delaney travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to investigate the supposed suicide of her estranged twin sister. Once there, Kate finds she can't trust the NOPD, so joins forces with bad-boy private investigator Nick Broussard, a former New Orleans police officer recently thrown off the force. Their investigation turns up a killer, a plague of corruption and a mystery assailant whose target is unclear; is Kate the next victim of a serial killer, or are Nick's crime world contacts looking to silence him? Though Nick and Kate's instant attraction might seem predictable and precipitousâ yes, she's a "no-nonsense, Joe Friday, Yankee police detective" and he's "the most frustrating man she'd ever met"â the scintillating love scenes it yields shouldn't disappoint. Though new readers will find Ross's casual, chatty prose style a love-it-or-hate-it affair, it pairs well with the Big Easy backdrop, and her deliberate pace pays off in the powerful, action-packed conclusion. (Mar.)

JoAnn Ross has published 90 novels, has been published in 26 countries, and is a member of the Romance Writers of America's Honor Roll of bestselling authors. She has won several writing awards, including being named Storyteller of the Year by Romantic Times. Her work has been excerpted in Cosmopolitan and featured by the Doubleday and Literary Guild book clubs.

With her husband and two fuzzy little dogs, she divides her time between the mountains of East Tennessee and the coastal lowlands of South Carolina.

Visit JoAnn on the Web to subscribe to her electronic newsletter, at www.joannross.com.