When Dr. Rennie Newton's jury duty on a case involving a contract killerends in an acquittal for Ricky Lozada, her carefully composed and very privatelife begins to unravel. First, someone breaks into her house to leave her ananonymous dozen red roses. Then her colleague and one-time rival for the chiefof surgery job is murdered in the parking lot of her hospital, which makes her aprime suspect, especially when the police learn that she's killed a man oncebefore. None of that stops Detective Wick Threadgill from falling in love withher; unlike his partner, he's sure that Lozada, not Rennie, is behind Howell'smurder. And it soon becomes clear that the killer is so obsessed with Renniethat he'll do anything to have her--including killing again. Brown, master ofthe romantic mystery, goes into darker territory here, but she handles it withher usual deftness and turns in a well-paced if not particularly heart-stoppingthriller with the requisite happy ending for Rennie and Wick. --JaneAdams