No Safe Place by JoAnn Ross

     This is the first time I have written about JoAnn Ross but it is certainly not the first time I have read her.  Whenever you want a high-octane romance, you can count on Joann Ross.  Her stories are fast-paced, the settings are well chosen, and the plots are well constructed.
     No Safe Place is set in New Orleans a year after Katrina.  The city, as we all know, still had many devastated neighborhoods and the police force was still riddled with corruption.  Kate Delaney, a Chicago homicide detective, walks into this nightmare of lies and secrets looking to find who killed her sister.  Kate is appalled at the disinterest of the New Orleans force in finding her sister's killer.  She knows she must find someone to help her who knows the city and its players.
     Nick Broussard returned to his hometown of New Orleans after spending 15 years as a SEAL doing special ops.  He signed on with NOPD but managed to get himself thrown off the force for taking payouts after only six months.  That's okay because Nick has a plan to find out what really happened to his estranged father, also a cop of long standing with the NOPD.  Now a private investigator, Nick knows the minute he sees Kate standing on the dock where he keeps his boat that she is going to be nothing but trouble.
     As Kate and Nick begin to peel away the layers of secrets surrounding both deaths, the dark side of New Orleans becomes more and more apparent.  Friends are not who they seem and enemies are hard to determine.  Many are willing to kill rather than have their secrets uncovered.
     JoAnn Ross has written a great story but she has also laid bare some of New Orleans' worst secrets.  Her careful research into New Orleans post Katrina shows us a city that still has a long way to go on its road to recovery.  Unfortunately, the stories about corruption in New Orleans were, and still are, true.

Other books by JoAnn Ross that I have read and can recommend.

The Homecoming (c2010)
Breakpoint (c2009)
Shattered   (c2009)
Crossfire  (2008)
Freefall (2008)
No Safe Place (2007)
Blaze  (2005)
Out of the Storm (Stewart Sisters Trilogy)  (c2004)
Out of the Blue (Stewart Sisters Trilogy)  (c2004)
Out of the Mist (Stewart Sisters Trilogy)  (c2003)
Magnolia Moon (Callahan Brothers Trilogy)  (c2003)
River Road (Callahan Brothers Trilogy)  (c2002)
Blue Bayou (Callahan Brothers Trilogy)  (c2002)
Far Harbor (Coldwater Cove #2)  (c2000)
Homeplace  (Coldwater Cove #1)  (c1999)