Cold Shot (Chesapeake Valor, #1)

Title: Cold Shot
Author: Dani Pettrey
Series: Chesapeake Valor #1
Genre: Romantic Suspense/Crime Fiction
Publishing Date: February 2, 2016

About the Book:
In college, Griffin McCray and his four best friends had their lives planned out. Griffin and Luke Gallagher would join the Baltimore PD. Declan Gray would head to the FBI and Parker Mitchell would go on to graduate school as a crime scene analyst. But then Luke vanished before graduation and their world–and friendships–crumbled.

Now Griffin is a park ranger at Gettysburg, having left life as a SWAT-team sniper when a case went bad. The job is mostly quiet–until the day he captures two relic hunters uncovering skeletal remains near Little Round Top. Griffin just wants the case to go away, but charming forensic anthropologist Finley Scott determines that the body is modern–a young social justice lawyer missing since spring–and all evidence points to the work of an expert sniper. When FBI agent Declan Gray takes over the case, past and present collide. Griffin soon realizes he’ll need to confront some of the darkest days of his life if he–and those he cares about–are going to escape a downward spiral of murder that crosses continents.

Review:
Cold shot was an action-packed suspense right to the last page. It’s my first book by Dani Pettrey but it certainly won’t be my last. (I’ll actually be reading book 2 in the series next). I’m curious to see where the author goes with the rest of the series since even though this story was mostly centered around Griffin and Finley, the other characters were well developed and played major roles as well.

I really liked how the author developed each of the characters in a way that revealed how their pasts had shaped them into who they were and either helped and/or hurt them as they faced different obstacles.  Even though there was a lot of conflict between Parker and Griffin, they were still able to work together in the face of danger. Even though Finley had trauma in her past, she was able to hold herself together when she needed to react. The characters also prayed for God’s strength and wisdom to help them along their way. They were very aware that they couldn’t do it all on their own strength.

The only thing I really struggled with was that some of the murder details came a little too easily. The author was able to make up for it in other areas but I would have liked to see some more realistic complexity in their investigation. There was a lot involved in understanding the reasons behind the murder more than the murder itself, so I can understand why that’s where the author’s focus was.

Overall this was a great read and I would recommend to lovers of romantic suspense and crime fiction. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!

Rating: 

Age Appropriateness/Content Awareness:
This wasn’t a book that I would personally recommend to younger readers. There was quite a bit of violence including murder and one of the characters deals with PTSD-like symptoms from a past trauma (which is explained at some point). As far as the romance goes, even though they are staying with each other for protection, there are couples that are romantically interested in each other staying with each other. The romance itself doesn’t go above kissing though. I probably wouldn’t recommend under 15 or 16 with maturity in mind.