A THIN DARK LINE

A THIN DARK LINE Tami Hoag (Bantam, $22.95) In the midst of a series of rapes and murders that have every woman in the Louisiana parish of Partout terrified, deputy Annie Broussard finds herself in a tight spot -- caught between her own professionalism and a group of bullying male cops. Their torment increases after she arrests a fellow officer for beating the prime suspect half to death. Broussard's only way out may be to place her trust in this brooding Cajun hunk, and his propensity for violence scares her almost as much as the killer's. Curiously, romance novelist Hoag handles the novel's police procedural aspects smoothly; the courtship elements, however, are predictable down to the last sigh. B+