Laurel has returned to her hometown, Bayou Breaux, La., to lick her wounds after she blew a case involving child sexual abuse, lost her public prosecutor's job and suffered a breakdown. With antics like crashing a Corvette and swatting a smarmy evangelist preacher with a bag of fish, Jack charms Laurel Chandler. The ``bad boy'' is the hero, horror writer Jack Boudreaux. But this time she factors in an offensive theme: bad boys are to be tolerated, but bad girls are to be raped, mutilated and strangled. As in her last romantic mystery, Still Waters, Hoag creates a pair of lovers who are so awful that they deserve each other. Someone with secrets worth killing for-and the power to turn this beautiful haven into a. But someone has a stake in silencing her suspicion.

Now it's up to ex-court reporter Marilee Jennings to decipher the puzzle of her best friend's death. Who will listen now? Dark Paradise New Eden, Montana, is a piece of heaven on earth where one woman died in her own private hell. Once before, Laurel's cries against a monstrous evil went unanswered. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage-and nearly her sanity. Cry Wolf Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. Yet nothing will stop her from digging beneath the town's placid surface for the truth-except the killer. Unwelcome newcomers to Still Creek, Minnesota, she and her troubled teenage son are treated with suspicion by the locals, including the sheriff. Still Waters When the body of a murdered man literally falls at Elizabeth Stuart's feet, she's able to wash away the blood-but not the terror. That once-burning obsession had destroyed.

Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag