In this book one of her new series, In the Line of Duty, Janice Cantore tackles a subject that has been all over the news lately; a police officer has to make a quick decision and sadly someone loses their life.

Tess O'Rourke is a wonderful example of an outstanding officer, she quickly rose to Commander of the East Division of Long Beach, California, and hopefully one day she will be the first female Chief. Sadly, that dream is snatched away when she shows up at a call where a fellow officer is under attack and to save his life she is forced to shoot an unarmed teenager.

One blogger with a beef against the police, paints a target on Tess's back and doesn't give up until he has people angrily questioning the shooting even after Tess is cleared of any wrong doing. Forced to resign from her job, she leaves behind her beloved city to be Chief in the small, quiet town of Rogue's Hollow, Oregon. Tess thought this peaceful town would be different from the fast pace of Long Beach but she soon finds out even a quiet town can harbor murders, drug addicts and kidnappers.

Janice Cantore being a retired police officer, knows firsthand the dangers officers face every day and she handled this heated subject extremely well. Through Tess's story you can see an officers point of view, since the media never wants to tell the complete story. Janice also knows how to write a story that will quickly pull you in, and Tess's story did that to me. The characters were quite intriguing; a dedicated Pastor, whose wife is fighting cancer, an overbearing Mayor hounding Tess's every move, a young woman that the whole town has given up on, and of course, a handsome Sheriff's Deputy that is more than happy to help the new chief.

I have been reading Janice Cantore's books for years and I have never been disappointed and I can't wait for book two of this series to come out. Thank you, Janice, for yet another satisfying read!

***Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers and NetGalley for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!***

Crisis Shot. I would have read this book by the cover alone, I think it is very eye catching. However since I am already a Janice Cantore fan, I would have read the book even with a bad cover. The story and book cover did not disappoint.
The storyline seemed to be ripped from the headlines with the attacks of the media based on a cop shooting with inaccurate facts.

Cantore creates a likeable and realistic character in Tess. Tess comes from a family of police officers and feels that it is in her blood. It is all she ever wanted to do. Once call and one blogger can change it all. She shoots an unarmed teenager. She eventually has to make the decision of what to do next. The author created heartbreaking scenes as Tess worked through what she should do.

My only feedback is I wanted to see more of Logan. Hopefully the relationship will develop and we will see more of him in the next book. Janice was even able to create a drug addict that was likeable and evoked compassion. Although the book is not a cliff hanger, it is torture to wait for the next book in the series.

This book feels so relevant…like it could be coming right off the television news. When Tess, a policewoman, kills a boy bent on killing her and another cop, a blogger hounds her relentlessly until she is forced to find work elsewhere. But murder follows her to her new town and soon she’s embroiled in another situation that could end her career.

Crisis Shot compellingly shows that social media doesn’t work by the same principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” Lives are forever changed and sometimes destroyed when words and anger run unchecked. It’s very frustrating and Tess experiences this in a personal way.

I enjoyed the story and the relationships between people in the small town. However, I felt there was a hint of romance that didn’t really have any substance behind it. That was the only part that felt a little forced to me. I got caught up in the mystery and enjoyed trying to solve it on my own. There were a few surprising twists. It was a good read.

Thank you to Tyndale House for providing me with a free e-copy of this book. I was not required to leave a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Crisis Shot by Janice Cantore – If you like mysteries and police novels, give it a try.

I had previously read a novel by Janice Cantore and was looking forward to her new book Crisis Shot.

The story starts out with Long Beach Police Commander, Tess O’Rourke answering an emergency call where a fellow officer is imminent danger. How Tess responds, right or wrong, will affect her future. The story could be taken out today’s headline news, where every action a police officer is scrutinized and condemned, even when there is little merit to critic’s narrative.

When the fallout from Tess’ action doesn’t seem to be winding down, she decides to make a move to a small town in Oregon, with the hope of being able to resume the career she loves in law enforcement. It a huge change in her life. As Chief of Police in the small town of Rogue’s Hallow, she will be answering to the mayor and city council. It might be a small town but even there, evil is at work.

I sort of liked the main character Tess, but didn’t feel like I got to know her well or really care about her like I wanted to. There was a bit of a disconnect. At first, I struggled with how Tess continually compared police work and what people were like in the small town compared where she had spent most of her life, in Long Beach, CA. Then I realized if I had made such a drastic change in my life, I would likely be reflecting back on where I came from and what it was like back then. The reader will get an understanding of how police work in a big city differs from a small town. I liked how the relationships with fellow police officers changed as they worked with their new Police Chief.

The overall pace of the novel seemed to drag. Tess encountered many obstacles and people seemed to be tight lipped and withheld important information. I didn’t guess who the bad guy was, there weren’t a lot of clues along the way, just lots of suspicious behavior on the part of several towns people. I didn’t really connect with the characters. I didn’t come away from reading the book saying, “I can’t wait to find out what happens with Tess next.” Something was missing, but I’m not sure what it was.

The Christian faith is a small part of the story. Tess is not a believer, but there are several Christians she encounters along the way. If there is a sequel I hope that Christian faith is a bigger part of the story.

Crisis Shot is okay. I would definitely read Janice Cantore’s future books because of my good experience with her earlier novels. If you like mysteries and police novels, give Crisis Shot by Janice Cantore a try and be sure to read some of her earlier books.

I would like to thank Tyndale House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Janice Cantore’s newest book Crisis Shot. I was under no obligation to give a favorable review.

I could not put this book down. Cantore delivers another gripping and stay-up all night thriller. Unsure of where to go after a call gone wrong Tess heads north. But running from the past situation doesn't fix one's heart or their spirit. Solving a terrible murder leads Tess to finding that even in a small town things are always not as they seem.

Crisis Shot is a great beginning for The Line of Duty series. I cannot wait to see what happens in book two.

Tess, a well respected officer in the Long Beach Police Dept., is suddenly a target of a mean-spirited blogger when she shoots a teenager in self-defense. Forced to find another job when exonerated, Tess moves to a small town in Oregon to become chief of the local police department. Not everyone is happy to have her as chief especially when a murder occurs. This is an action packed suspense as other crimes occur and Tess tries to tie the cases together. Very enjoyable. Can't wait to read the next book in this new series. Highly recommended.

I enjoy Janice Cantore's writings because she has been an actual cop and knows what goes on behind the scenes, which she does well at bringing into her fiction stories. So when I heard that Cantore was writing a new series, I got excited. I enjoy a good mystery with a murderer and the hunt for the killer as the story moves along.

Cantore really does jump right in and include the reader in the drama. I never once doubted anything that Cantore has written about the work of the police work. She writes from experience and allows her cop characters to jump off the page with their lives' work. I could picture the setting of Rogue Hollow and the rustic backwoods small town in the northern part of Oregon. While the change in scenery is hard on Tess since she comes from South Beach, California, Cantore does a good job at allowing me to see and understand the surrounding characters feelings of this outsider.

As for the character of Tess, I felt bad for her. She was doing her job and had to move in order to keep face and make the public in California happy. The story could have been ripped from the headlines, especially with all the stories of the police injustice today. Tess moved without really any complaint and allowed herself to take over another police force, knowing she didn't feel right, but she loved her career choice, so she did it willing.

At the end of the first book, there really isn't any romance that stands out to satisfy those romance needing readers. But . . . there might be two guys that could stand out as a potential romance in the future. I have to keep reading to find out if Cantore allows Tess to find romance in this series.

The plot. The reason I am reading the book in the first place. While I have read Cantore's stories before, so I had a good idea of how she writes and creates her stories, Crisis Shot is a lot more tame and laid back from her normal stories. In Crisis Shot, it takes a while to get to the murder of the story. While most suspense stories have the cop in danger and running for their life, Cantore doesn't write Tess as being threaten at all. Her life moves along through the interviews without once someone trying to stop her. Crisis Shot felt more like a pre-curser to the rest of the story. The beginning to the drama. I wanted more and expected more from Cantore.

Even though this novel didn't hit it out of the park for me, some other fans of romantic suspense or suspense in general might enjoy this novel. Fans of Christy Barritt, Irene Hannon, and Colleen Coble might enjoy Crisis Shot. I'm not going to write off Cantore all together; I will still look forward to her next book.

I received a complimentary copy of Crisis Shot by Janice Cantore from Tyndale Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

This is the first book in Ms Cantore’s new series, Line of Duty, and also the first book I read by this author. Both have left we with a desire to continue the series and finding other books by this author.
It was a gripping crime story filled with complex and interesting characters and a plot filled with twists and turns.
Tess, our main female character is complex and one whose moral compass is high. When she is forced to leave her highly respected position as Chief of Police in Long Beach, due to an accidental fatal shooting, she moves to a tiny town in Oregon in hopes of putting her life back together. There she comes across more crime and whodunit.
You will find some romance in the story, but it’s minimal. My only concern was that I had to keep track of all the individuals and names. In the first few pages I was already trying to keep the names and characters straight.
Still , I am looking forward to the next book in this series.
I was gifted this book by Netgalley . The opinions expressed are solely my own.

Crisis Shot is the first book in a new series by Janice Cantore. It is full of gripping suspense, and has a very real quality to the crime that hits home.

When Tess is involved with a police shooting, the fallout threatens to destroy the career she has worked so hard to build. Left with few options, she decides to leave Long Beach and apply for a position as Chief of Police in a small rural town in Oregon. In her first few weeks she faces much opposition, but she had the chance to prove herself when a man is murdered and the local pastor's wife goes missing.

Crisis Shot begins with the very topical and somewhat controversial police shooting of a young boy. It brings to light this story from the officer's perspective, in this case our main character Tess. So sad for the police offer, the young teenager and his family, and the wider community. Cantore makes it clear that, in this case, the officer was the in the right, but this certainly doesn't prevent the outpouring of grief and blame, exaggerated by the media. This is certainly a topical theme and I found it very poignant. I read these sections with a critical eye and I was also a little dubious about the way this part of the storyline was concluded. I understand that it is what was needed for the story, but I thought it did make simple what is, I'm sure, far more complicated and less clear cut. I could imagine that the way this story handles the topic of police shootings and positions the reader might be distasteful to some people. However, this plot line is really just the motivator for Tess to move to a new area and the crimes she investigates as the new police chief are the focus of the story.

Tess is an intriguing character. She is strong and determined, but also compassionate. She has a long list of rules that govern her police work, something she learnt from her father. She wants to prove herself in her new role, perhaps even quiet her own doubts that have appeared since the shooting. The investigations are the focus of the story and I found them to be intriguing, with a nice balance between good detective work and high-tension action. I did find that it sometimes got a bit distracting with the detailed descriptions of town landmarks or history, stuff I really wasn't interested in. However, the rest of the writing was captivating and the action was fast-paced.

There is just a hint of romance in this story. Tess is attracted to the deputy sheriff, but neither she nor the deputy, Steve Logan, make any moves. If the series continues to follow Tess, then I believe there will be plenty of opportunity for this romance to develop, along with Tess's continuing questions about faith and God. Something to look forward to. Overall, Crisis Shot was an entertaining novel, with a strong focus on mystery and milder investigation.

The publishers provided an advanced readers copy of this book for reviewing purposes. All opinions are my own.

Crisis Shot was absolutely an amazing read. I loved it, and can't wait for more from Janice Cantore! I absolutely fell in love with the characters, and their stories. And how they interacted! It was intriguing, and uplifting, all at once! Highly recommend.