Janice Cantore Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: I was born and raised in Southern California, and I have two bachelor’s degrees—one from UC Irvine and one from Cal State Long Beach. I worked as a police officer for the city of Long Beach for a total of about 22 years, 16 in uniform and 6 in a noncareer position.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
A: I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but my father didn’t encourage it, didn’t think I could make a living at it. When I was a kid I filled journals with stories about horses. I was horse crazy—my favorite book was The Black Stallion.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?
A: My first writing break was meeting Lauraine Snelling at a writers’ conference. At the time, she was teaching what she called a writing intensive at her home. It was an almost-weeklong class. I took the class and learned so much! Plus, I developed lifelong friendships with Lauraine and many of the other attendees. It was the best class I’ve ever taken, and it put me on the path that eventually got me published.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release, Crisis Shot?
A: I moved to Oregon four years ago. Crisis Shot is my first book set almost entirely in Oregon. It’s very different living in a small, rural community rather than Long Beach, California, and likewise law enforcement in a small community is very different. There is a real sense of community here, and that was something that I wanted to explore in the story.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for Crisis Shot?
A: All the bad press about police shootings inspired me to try and write a story illustrating the difficult choices police officers are often called on to make in the line of duty. The press always seems to paint things as black-and-white: cop bad, crook good or misunderstood. News stories seem, sometimes, to insinuate that cops want to shoot and kill people, when nothing could be further from the truth. Cops want to do their jobs and then go home to their families at EOW.

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?
A: I hope that Tess’s story shows how quickly decisions must be made, how no cop can know the whole situation in the first second he/she is on scene, and that there are people with agendas who will skew any circumstances to benefit those agendas. Hesitation kills cops, and it’s not bloodlust that causes them to pull the trigger; it’s a real fear for their safety or the safety of others.

Q: What inspires you to write?
A: Lots of times it’s a news story I read, or in the case of my last book, Catching Heat, it was a cold murder case. Sometimes it’s a person or a story I hear. Stories are always percolating in my brain.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A: Book three in the saga of Tess O’Rourke, in the Line of Duty series.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?
A: I love being outdoors. Right now it’s summer, and kayaking is high on my list.