"Police procedural romance"

In Camp David, the FBI and Secret Service accuse Washington Post reporter Laurel Stewart of stealing papers from Vice President Aiken. Her paper's Managing Editor Lois Merryman fires Laurel for making up a story involving Aiken that the conscientious journalist cross checked with White House informants and a Department of Energy source. She wonders who wanted her out of the way and why.

Laurel's roommate Chloe Hollister is part of the Veep's contingent heading to his hometown of Somersett, South Carolina for an annual festival. That afternoon Chloe calls from Somersett telling Laurel that she has an idea who set her up. She says she will call later as she cannot speak freely at this time. When Chloe fails to call, a worried Laurel rushes to Somersett to insure her friend is safe, but Chloe is missing. Laurel visits the police; homicide detective Joe Gannon listens to her story since he investigates the death of Sissy Beale, who might be Chloe. Laurel states the corpse is not her roommate. Over the next few days her friend's vanishing and the Sissy case interconnect even as Joe and Laurel fall in love.

The lead couple is a delightful pairing deserving of one another although Joe feels inadequate having let down his nice former wife and their now deceased son. The two suspense subplots interconnect smoothly and not just through a paranormal element when Laurel enters a trance in which she enacts the final minutes of Sissy. Although the villain is so insane that it seems impossible that no one in his circle or the media recognized that, fans will appreciate this police procedural romance due to solid casting and a fine suspense plot.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 15, 2004

Summary

Southern hospitality can kill you.... There's no escaping the sweltering heat when White House correspondent Laurel Stewart arrives in Somersett, South Carolina, and discovers that her best friend -- the vice president's protocol advisor -- has disappeared. As frustrated as she is by Detective Joe Gannon's skepticism regarding her suspicions, Laurel finds his smooth-talking southern ways and brazen bedroom eyes disturbingly, dangerously, seductive. With the homicide rate escalating as fast as the mercury, the last thing Joe needs is a stubborn, argumentative reporter -- particularly not an outsider from Washington, D.C., who triggers a sexual jolt at every encounter -- spinning her crazy conspiracy theories. But while he may not entirely believe Laurel Stewart, Joe can't stop himself from wanting her. Thrown together by necessity, drawn together by passion, Laurel and Joe follow a twisted trail into the darkest corners of the sultry, moss-draped city to uncover a secret someone is willing to kill to keep.