"Show some respect, young man...Just what was this young woman to you?" Jackie looked into the nurse's pinkface. "Nance was the best friend I ever had," she said. "The only friend I ever had."

Jackie is Jack Cross to everyone except Nance, a Wild West show trick shooter in turn-of-the-century New York who has her own secrets to hide. A slick-fielding second baseman with a good bat, Jackie must never drop her disguise if she is to continue to play professional baseball. But when Nance is murdered by a knife-thrower who does know Jackie's secret, the young ballplayer takes off on a transatlantic chase that changes her life.

Set on two continents, in three different time-periods, with a fascinating cast of characters including Buffalo Bill Cody, Jack the Ripper, and a musical star named Ruby the Red who has still another hidden life, Cutting Loose is a multi-layered page-turner filled with insights and surprises.