A Woman of Valor

A Woman of Valor by Gary Corbin
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Description
For Valorie Dawes, #metoo means #fightback.

Rookie policewoman Valorie Dawes has a mission: take men like Richard Harkins, a serial child molester, off the streets of her small hometown of Clayton, CT—for good. Things start off well as Val's trusted senior partner and mentor, Gil, shows her the ropes and helps her survive the nastiness they encounter on the streets–and in the chauvinistic office politics at the precinct.

Despite Gil's support, Val becomes increasingly isolated within the department and vilified in the public eye as reckless and incompetent. In response, she devotes all of her time and energy to chasing Harkins, but he proves to be both elusive and cruel, continuing to victimize young girls and pressing his threats closer and closer to Val's own inner circle.

Can Valorie overcome the trauma she suffered as a child and stop Harkins from hurting others like her—or will her bottled-up anger lead her to take reckless risks that put the people she loves in greater danger?

Book Review
A young woman who was molested as a child becomes an officer of the law after following in the footsteps of the lone family member, an uncle, who believed her. Unfortunately, before retribution could be found that the uncle was cut down in the line of duty. Our heroine is not readily accepted by members of the force. Her partner manages to gain her confidence eventually, but thanks to a mistake during domestic abuse call & the suspect, a pedophile, escaping she is taunted and ridiculed. The ridicule also comes from a reporter.

Sound like a lot? Well, it was in the best of ways. The story had many interesting topics that went into making this an interesting read i.e. sexual abuse, police procedures, and workplace harassment to name a few. The author does a great job of bringing the reader into each action scene and even the scenes were as mundane as a street patrol. He, the author, had amazing insight into the psyche of an abused woman and how childhood abuse can affect you as an adult. There were a few scenes that I felt were a bit slow and a few characters that I felt did not add much value, but they may in a sequel.

Good formatting, structure, strong content and interesting primary characters made for a solid read that I would recommend to fans of procedural fiction.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review and rating. My rating is 3.5

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