AUTHOR: Dani Pettrey
DATE: 2016
PUBLISHER: Bethany House
STARS: ****
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.
.I’ve read and enjoyed several of Dani Pettrey’s books, so when I was offered this one in exchange for my honest opinion, I jumped at the chance. However, when I began to read Cold Shot, I had to flip back several times in order to figure out who was who. The hero is first referred to only as Griffin, which I assumed was his surname. Then, when the heroine enters the story, she meets up with a Ranger McCray, AKA Ranger Grumpy. No first name. Such a small omission, but it irritated me. Fortunately, once I realized the ranger in question was Griffin McCray, the danger and intrigue captured me and carried me through the rest of the book.
I also wondered why the book’s tag line is, “Four best friends, and then one went missing,” since that is not the point of this story. Perhaps that plot line will appear in Book Two.
That being said, Cold Shot is filled with interesting characters, an intricate mystery, and plenty of nail-biting danger. The romance between Griffin and Finley is powerful yet sweet, and Griffin’s old friends obviously deserve their own stories told.
Cold Shot is a worthy suspense novel, and I award it four stars. Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.