Crisis Shot, Line of Duty #1 by Janice Cantore

Book description:

Tess O'Rourke dreams of becoming the first female chief of police in Long Beach, California. As commander of the East Division, she is well on her way . . . until the night she responds to an officer-needs-assistance call and fatally shoots an unarmed teenager. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury, Tess is so hounded by the public that she takes a job in Oregon to escape the bad press.

Winning over the residents of Rogue's Hollow might be more difficult than adjusting to her new role as police chief in the small, backwater town. Especially when her closest friend, the pastor's wife, goes missing and the woman's cousin is found shot. Tess finds an ally in sheriff's deputy Steve Logan, but as they track down Rogue's Hollow's first murderer, she worries that she's breaking one of her rules and getting too close to him.


My review:

   I have yet to be disappointed in a Janice Cantore book, and was happy to see a new series starting by her. The fact that she is a former police officer makes her books all the more interesting, as she knows police work and knows police work and procedure.

 This book starts out with a look at what it is like for police officers when a justified shooting is declared unjustified by the public. There has been a lot of hatred towards the police in real life in a couple of such cases, so it it was interesting to see a police officer's take on that, even in a fictional story.

  As with her other novels, Cantore has come up with some great characters, plot, and setting. Romance is rarely center stage in her novels, and she tends to build up to it all through a series instead of having the couple fall in love and be married at the end of the book..... not that I am knocking authors who do that.

 Crisis Shot is a book where you have a hard time deciding who the bad guy/guys are. Cantore did a great job of writing a suspenseful novel, and keeping her bad guys' identities a secret to the reader. There is a lot of suspense, police/detective work, and tense situations, all opportunities to test the new police chief.

 I read the book in one evening. It is the kind of book you don't want to put down, so I didn't. I had the time to read, so I read through to the great and climatic end. It was definitely an enjoyable read, and the author can add another great novel to her author resume'.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

About the author: 

A former Long Beach, California, police officer of twenty-two years, Janice Cantore worked a variety of assignments, including patrol, administration, juvenile investigations, and training. She’s always enjoyed writing and published two short articles on faith at work for Cop and Christ and Today’s Christian Woman before tackling novels. A few years ago, she retired to a house in the mountains of Southern California, where she lives with three Labrador retrievers, Jake, Maggie, and Abbie. Janice writes suspense novels designed to keep readers engrossed and leave them inspired. Accused is the first book in the Pacific Coast Justice series, featuring Carly Edwards. Janice also authored the Brinna’s Heart series, which includes The Kevlar Heart and A Heart of Justice. Visit Janice’s website at www.janicecantore.com and connect with her on Facebook.


Crisis Shot is available from Tyndale Publishing.

Thanks to Tyndale for the review copy.