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:
If you
enjoy police procedurals with strong female leads, then you will enjoy the
well-paced story line of "Critical Pursuit" from author Janice Cantore. Brinna
Caruso was abducted as a young girl. Molested, and left to die in the desert,
her nightmarish experience and subsequent rescue led her to a career in law
enforcement. While her regular assigned duty is that of a patrol officer, she
frequently assists in the search and retrieval of lost or kidnapped children.
Her partner is her service dog, Hero. When Brinna comes under scrutiny for an
officer-involved shooting in which she killed a young man in self-defense, her
K-9 duties are temporarily sidelined. She is assigned a new partner, experienced
officer Jack O'Reilly. Once respected as a "top cop", Jack has suffered an
emotional and spiritual downslide since his wife and unborn child were killed by
a drunk driver almost a year ago. He is half-alive, often wishes he was dead,
and questions why God would take the life of his wife and child and let the
drunk driver who killed them escape with his own life intact. His strongest
motivation for staying alive is not his law enforcement career and sense of
duty, but the revenge which sears his soul. Brinna lost her faith when she was
raped and left for dead in the desert. Even though she is surrounded by
well-meaning people of faith, including her own mother, Brinna cannot reconcile
the existence of God with the horror she herself experienced and also witnesses
in the lives of the young children she has sworn to save. At first, she finds
Jack to be strange and melancholy, living up to the stories she has heard that
he is "burnt out" and mentally unstable. Brinna and Jack admit to each other
that neither of them wanted the other as a partner, but because of their
professional dedication, they agree to carry on with their temporary
partnership. Eventually, they form a tentative friendship, and respect grows as
they spend time together on the job. The man who kidnapped and violated Brinna
has long been thought dead, but now cases similar to his method of operation are
surfacing once again. As Brinna and Jack work together to locate the monster and
bring him to justice, they are also their own questions of faith. They each have
issues in their past which they must face and then let go, but will they be able
to move past their grief and fears? Is the criminal they seek the man who
abducted Brinna, or is he a new threat? If Brinna and Jack replace their doubts
with faith, and their fears with hope, what will their futures hold? Look for
the follow up book, "Visible Threat", in which Brinna Caruso and Jack O'Reilly
are partnered once again.
Review Copy Gratis Tyndale House Publishers
JANICE
CANTORE
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