Abducted by Janice Cantore

After solving the mayor’s murder and exposing corruption among the top brass in Las Playas, Carly Edwards is happy to be back on patrol with her partner, Joe, putting bad guys behind bars. For once, everything in life seems to be going right.

But then everything starts to go wrong. Slow to recover from an injury, her ex-husband, Nick, begins pulling away just as they were starting to get close again. Meanwhile, when Joe’s wife lands in the hospital with a mysterious illness, their baby is kidnapped. As Carly chases down every lead in a search to find the baby, her faith is pushed to its limits.






This is the second book in the "Pacific Coast Justice" series by Janice Cantore.  I had already read the first book, "Accused" and hounded Ms. Cantore to let me read "Abducted" and post a review about it.  Since I'm such a great reviewer ( a legend in my own mind), she graciously accepted my request.


Carly is back and still getting the feel for her new christian body that she put on in the last book.  Her relationship with Nick is improving, but there is still some friction between them.  Carly is out patroling with her partner when they get a call to head to the hospital.  They find out that her partner's wife and 4-month old baby have been taken to the hospital and his wife is unconscious.  While they are tending to his wife, his son is taken upstairs for precaution.  Overnight, the unthinkable happens.  His son is kidnapped right out of the hospital.  Thus begins a never ending search to find her partner's son, all the while tending to her relationship with Nick.  Along the way, Carly stumbles upon an FBI surveillance on a person of interest in the baby kidnapping case.    Nick begins pushing her away and reporter Alex is beginning to lend a supportive ear to her friendship.  Her roommate is suspended for her role in the kidnapping, and now she's moving out on Carly.  Do they find the baby?  Will Andrea really move out? What's going on with Nick? What is Alex's angle in this?  How in the world does ICE get involved? Where is the God that she has so recently been placing all of her faith in? WHEW!  If that's not enough to get you interested in this series, you have some serious problems!


Ms. Cantore does a great job with her character of Carly.  For Carly to be such a young Christian, she sure puts her faith in action.  I love that Carly has such intimate discussions with God as she attempts to make sense of the things that are happening around her.  I also enjoyed seeing how she molded the relationship between Carly and Nick throughout this book.  Their relationship was definitely on a roller coaster as he struggled to deal with his injury and what it means for his future.  The police procedures are so realistic, I appreciate it when an author does all of the extra research that gives me a little bit of knowledge and learning, all while I'm enjoying a book.  The dilemmas that the characters get themselves into are all settled in believable ways.  For example, the simple fact that she had the character of Joe shown as struggling between being out there looking for his son and being at the hospital to care for his wife was very believable.  She gave him the solution of staying with his wife and trusting that his friends on the force would find his son.  That's a great character trait that should be followed!


Is this a "guy's book"?  There's no question about it.  This book has police chases, arson, car wrecks, FBI, human trafficking, etc.  If you would ever want adventure and intrigue, this book and series is definitely for you!




ABOUT THE AUTHOR



A retired Long Beach California police officer of 22 years (16 in uniform and 6 as a non-career officer), Janice Cantore worked a variety of assignments, patrol, administration, juvenile investigations and training. During the course of her career in uniform Janice found that faith was indispensable to every aspect of the job and published articles on faith at work, one for a quarterly newspaper called “Cop and Christ”, and another for the monthly magazine “Today’s Christian Woman”.


With retirement Janice began to write longer pieces and several novels were born. She has a two book suspense series in print she calls Brinna’s Heart Series, The Kevlar Heart and A Heart of Justice (Oaktara Publishing). Janice is excited and honored to now be a part of the Tyndale Publishing House family. Accused, the first installment in her new suspense offering, The Pacific Coast Justice Series, is set to be released February 1, 2012 and will kick off a brand new chapter in her writing career. In addition to suspense and action, her books feature strong female leads. Janice writes suspense novels designed to keep you engrossed and leave you inspired.


Janice has bachelor’s degrees in Biology (University of California at Irvine) and Physical Education (California State University at Long Beach).  She also completed graduate coursework in Criminal Justice (University of Southern California) and is currently a member of American Christian Fiction Writer’s and Sisters in Crime.  She attends Crescenta Valley Community Church in La Crescenta California and while a few years ago she retired to a house in the mountains of Southern California, she currently resides in Glendale California in order to help care for her aging parents. Janice is single and has three Labrador Retrievers, Jake, Maggie and Abbie. Janice’s hobbies are reading, cross-stitching, kayaking, hiking, walking the dogs and trying to stay fit.







I received this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.