SWORN TO PROTECT by Jo Davis

Publisher:  Signet

Published:   May 7, 2013

ISBN:  978-0451415004

Genre:   Romantic Suspense

Format:  Paperback

Obtained via:  Publisher  

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

TWO-1/2 HEARTS

Shane Ford gets the kind of phone call no one wants to get when in the middle of the night his best friend’s son calls because his father is dead.  When Shane agreed to be NFL star Brad Cooper’s son Drew’s godfather he never expected that he’d one day be Drew’s parent.  But Shane is a man of his word and is ready to be there for the grieving teen.  Thing is, Shane has his own issues.  First, he’s a love em and leave em kind of guy and even though he’s one of Sugarland’s top police officers, he’s left a trail of broken hearted women in his wake, not the least of which is Daisy Callahan.

When Daisy met and started dating Shane she was pretty sure they had a good thing going.  He treated her right and sex was amazing. That was, until, Shane unceremoniously dropped her.  Now, months later, Daisy does her best to avoid her co-worker and fellow cop. Thing is, sometimesi their paths cross—like when a troubled teen ends up as part of one of Shane’s murder investigations.

When eveidence begins to show that Brad may not died of natural causes Shane digs in to investigate the death.  At the same time, dealing with his grief and seemingly insurmountable changes in his life, Drew begins to act out.  Together those two issues bring Shane and Daisy together.  Can they set their personal issues aside long enough to find out what realy happened to Brad?  And, can they do it before Drew is drawn deeper into a frightening and dangerous situation?

I really enjoyed Jo Davis’s Firefighters of Station Five series and pretty much devoured each book as soon as it came out.  I watched and waited for her next series and was delighted when I saw her Sugarland Blue series coming out, especially when it looked like a number of characters introduced in the Station Five series were coming back as main characters. Unfortunately, SWORN TO PROTECT was a huge disappointment for me.

I realize this is fiction and fiction has a certain amount of license, but that’s no excuse not to do some basic research.  One of my biggest pet peeves is the whole “48 hours to file a missing person’s report.”  That’s Hollywood hype…anyone can file a missing persons report at any time.  And you can file one with any police department.  The person doesn’t even have to be missing per se…although the police will look askance if a false report, or one solely to harass, is filed.  And you don’t even have to be in the same state where the missing person is.  It’s easy enough to find this out with a simple call to your local police department.

While there were parts of the book that I found entertaining, when Shane and his partner take off on a stakeout in the middle of the night without so much as a head up to their dispatch Davis completely lost me.  No police officer is going off on a stakeout without appropriate backup and at least letting his dispatcher know.  It’s basic officer safety and not that hard to find out. 

I liked Daisy for herself—but felt she made it way too easy for Shane to win her over. 

I don’t know what happened to Ms. Davis between what was a really super series in her firefighters in this one.  I’ll continue on to book 2 because I liked her earlier writing and hope this one is just an anomly.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.