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.
I really enjoy a good suspense novel. Especially those that can keep me guessing. But, sometimes it feels like I don’t have as many authors that I truly enjoy on my bookshelves for this genre as I do for historical fiction or contemporary romance. That leaves me eager and quick to try debut authors and new-to-me authors. Janice Cantore falls into that new-to-me category, and while there were parts of her latest novel, Crisis Shot, that I was less excited about, I think I may remain open to continue trying another novel by her.
Crisis Shot is a book that had a number of things I really enjoyed. First of all, I loved the relevancy of it. The main character, Tess, is a cop who makes the tough choice to shoot at someone or risk her life and that of another officer. That choice follows her throughout the book. But that same choice reflects a lot of current events in our country today. But this same issue is something that made the book drag on for me as well. This moment that happens early on in the book is the catalyst that forces Tess out of her comfort zone and into something new. But that same moment, somehow seems to drag the pace of the book down for quite a few pages. But once I got through that and reached the point where things started happening in Rogue Hollow, my interested started to be engaged in the novel again and I found myself once again enjoying the book.
Overall, I did enjoy this book. It is clear that much of Cantore’s personal experience in law enforcement comes onto the page and that lends a certain authenticity to this novel. And honestly, despite what I felt like was a very slow start, I did enjoy the book quite a bit once a bit more action started to happen and there was a mystery to solve.
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