Critical Pursuit by Janice Cantore

Officer Brinna Caruso has built a reputation at the precinct as the cop to call when a child goes missing. For Brinna, it’s personal because she was once one of them. Brinna and her K-9 search and rescue dog, Hero, will stop at nothing to find a missing child, no matter the stakes.

Detective Jack O’Reilly isn’t ready to return to his homicide duties, after losing his wife to a drunk driver. He’s on the downside of his career, and bent on revenge, when he’s assigned as Brinna’s partner. While on patrol, Jack struggles between his quest for personal justice and his responsibility to those around him, especially his partner.

Skeptical of Jack’s motives, Brinna isn’t sure she can rely on her new partner, whose reckless abandon endangers the safety of those around him. But when a man surfaces with an MO similar to the criminal who abducted Brinna twenty years earlier, Brinna and Jack must cast aside previous judgments and combine efforts to catch the kidnapper, and finally allow Brinna the peace stolen from her as a child.

My review:
   Janice Cantore is a fairly new author, with this being just her fourth book on the Christian market, but she has quickly become one of my favorite authors. The fact that she was a police officer for several years makes the police action in her books all the more believable.

  As with her other books, this book is full of action, drama, suspense, and police action. It was lacking in romance, though there were signs that may come in the sequel.

  I like it when a Christian author isn't afraid to actually have Christian content and a Christian message in their books, and this one had a great message. The two main characters both struggled in different ways and for different reasons, the question of there being a God, and if there is, why He allows suffering and doesn't always intervene and answer prayers the way that we want Him to. This theme played a big part in the book, and the author did as good of a job addressing that question as she does with writing a great suspense novel. I don't want to give too much away, but one of them is dealing with it much better at the end of the book, and the other one seems more open to it, but it isn't tied up in a neat bow.

  I did read the book in one sitting, and loved it. It dealt with a tough crime: crimes against children, but it wasn't graphic and it was handled well. The book was a great suspense novel worth reading, but it is also a great reminder that there are evil men in this world who are intent on kidnapping and molesting young children, and we can't be too careful with the kids in our life. The book was also a great reminder that God is good, and it is men's evil deeds who cause us pain and harm, not God.

Note: Critical Pursuit was previously published with another publisher under the title Kevlar Heart.

About the author:

Janice Cantore is a retired Long Beach police officer who now writes suspense novels to keep readers engrossed and leave them inspired. Her twenty-two years of experience on the force lend authenticity to her stories. Her Pacific Coast Justice series has met with critical acclaim. Critical Pursuit is the first book in her latest series. Visit Janice's website at www.janicecantore.com and connect with her on Facebook.



Critical Pursuit is available from Tyndale House Publishing.

Thanks to Tyndale for the review copy.