Better When He’s Brave

Crownover’s third Welcome to the Point contemporary (after Better When He’s Bad) returns to her rough but generic wrong-side-of-the-tracks urban setting to frame a frantically torrid connection between a tough cop and a sexy criminal amid escalating wars for the control of the city’s underground. Reeve Black breaks the anonymity of the witness protection program to help Det. Titus King bring Conner Roark, her traitorous ex-boyfriend, to justice. Titus and Reeve start a showy public affair to provoke possessive, jealous Conner out of hiding, but Reeve’s respect for Titus, not to mention their sizzling chemistry, soon leaves her wanting a genuine emotional connection. Series followers will appreciate the couples from previous novels reappearing in significant roles, along with the recapitulation of the series theme of a gritty but kind man winning over a soft-hearted woman who was only made tough by circumstance. But there’s endless tedium in Crownover’s continual reminders to the reader that the bland Point is a bad place that people can never escape, and seeing all the relationship dynamics together makes the pattern of limited roles for women, always seen in relation to their men, very obvious. Agent: Stacy Donaghy, Donaghy Literary Group. (Aug.)