ENTERTAINMENT

Smoke Screen, the latest romantic-suspense novel from Arlington's Sandra Brown, isn't quite as much of a rambunctious romp as her last book, 2007's Play Dirty.

BRAD LOPER/DMN

Novelist Sandra Brown moves from Texas to Charleston, S.C., in her new book.

But "not quite as good," where Ms. Brown is concerned, is still excellent indeed, if a bit slower-paced. Play Dirty moved like a Ferrari though the back yards and shaded lanes of Highland Park; Smoke Screen, set in Charleston, S.C., progresses more like a horse-drawn carriage. It doesn't have as much breathless intrigue, but makes up for that with far more opportunity for character development and introspection.

The book concerns a police-station fire that takes a half-dozen lives, turns four men into heroes and gives an ambitious newswoman the scoop she needs for a major career boost. Ms. Brown says in an author's note that she was well into writing the book when the devastating sofa-store fire occurred in Charleston in June 2007; the similarities, however, give the book a disconcerting sense of déjà vu for anyone who followed that real-life tragedy.

Five years after the fictional fire, broadcast journalist Britt Shelley gets thrown back into the story when Jay Burgess, one of the heroes and now suffering from terminal cancer, calls with the promise of a major revelation. Before Britt can find out what he's talking about, however, she's given a date-rape drug (whether by Jay or not is one of the book's many mysteries) and wakes up in his bed, naked, with no recollection of much of the previous night. Jay is dead beside her.

Britt is quickly demoted from victim to suspect by skeptical police, but before she can be taken into custody, she's kidnapped by Raley Gannon, a reclusive former firefighter who also has a connection to the fire and the possible conspiracy surrounding it.

Ms. Brown goes deep into old-school romance territory here, with Raley and Britt falling for each other almost as soon as he unties her in his middle-of-nowhere cabin. The characters are finely drawn, but their relationship doesn't quite hold up; there's far too much trust, too soon. Ms. Brown also crosses the fine line between R-rated erotica and X-rated icky a bit too often, especially when talking about an incestuous relationship between two supporting characters.

The author's sense of humor remains in exemplary form, however, particularly in her creation of the filthy, crotchety, hound-dog lovin' Delno, a backwoods neighbor of Raley's. She's also unusually deft with the sections written from Raley's point of view (so many romance authors can't get the male voice quite right), and with hitting the little nuances dead on, as in a scene where Britt gets ultra-peeved because her kidnapper had the audacity to change the seat and mirror settings in her car.

Sandra Brown

(Simon & Schuster,

$26.95 hardcover)