In WHITE LACE & PROMISES, Bobby Underwood takes a departure from his great romantic noirs, westerns, and detective series novels to pay homage to those brilliant police procedurals by such greats as Elizabeth Linington and Ed McBain. As in his other fine works, Underwood is running on all cylinders here. This one is an edgy thriller combined with a sexy undertone hearkening back to those racy pulp stories of yesteryear.

With the temperature hovering around 100 degrees during the August heatwave in Glenville, California, Detectives Sam Ballard and Mike Nolan are sweating over the very strange murders of johns by whom they suspect is a hooker.
There’s plenty of heat unrelated to the air temperature, too. The sexual atmosphere is depicted in a classy style that’s real, adding to the thrill of the story. Underwood takes the narrative to a much deeper level than the typical racy police procedural, giving the reader beautifully drawn psychological underpinnings of his characters. Carefully drawn scenes build upon each other to produce a fast paced story with twists and turns I guarantee you won’t see coming. It gets better and better as the reader swiftly turns the pages toward a heart-touching ending. ( )