Tough Justice

A flying start to a new series from Tee O'Fallon. You can really feel the difference in the story when the author has actual law enforcement experience. As a reader who also works in law enforcement, albeit in the UK, it always just feels that wee bit more realistic. Deck and Tori are on a collision course. There's an epidemic of overdoses due to a new drug and Deck and his DEA team are on their tails. Tori is the doctor in charge of the local ER and has the most experience treating this drug. When one of Deck's teammates gets accidentally dosed, Tori is the one to save him. Deck needs her experience and medical know-how, pity he has a bit of a ropy past with the medical community and their willingness to cure everything with a pill. OMW Deck and Tori have great chemistry. Deck's reason for his aversion to pretty much all pain meds is heartbreaking. Tori also had sound reasoning for her hatred of the DEA (don't worry she's not a drug dealer!). I loved them learning to work together and Tori became a bit of bada%%! Of course, Thor pretty much stole the show for me! I love reading about service dogs. As usual, I had the "BigBad" narrowed down to two and it was one of my two options - go me! Engaging, great main characters, intriguing storyline. The sign of a good book? You come away having learned something, this book has that in spades. I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and this i my honest and voluntary review

Tough Justice by Tee O’Fallon K-9 Special Ops #1 Great introduction to a new series – Enjoyed meeting the team and finding out how Tori & Deck get together. What I liked: * Adam “Deck” Decker: DEA K-9 officer, leader, team player, has issues with doctors that are brought out in the story, interesting backstory that explains why he is a DEA agent, hates Opioids * Victoria “Tori” Sampson: Emergency Room Physician, intelligent, guarded, has issues with the DEA that are explored in this story, guarded, dealing with too many opioid overdose deaths in the ER * Thor: K-9 partner to Deck, affectionate, protective, has canine skills not all dogs acquire * Getting to meet some of the DEA K-9 team that will show up in future books * That the topic is relevant * The mystery of who the drug lord selling gray death is * Finding out who the drug lord was – though I had an inkling * Meeting Tori’s sister and father * The discussion Tori’s father had with Deck when they had a family meal together * The police procedural and medical aspects of the story * Contemplating how likely it would be for a civilian physician to be taken along on some of the activities mentioned in this book * Reading an author’s work that I have enjoyed books by before What I didn’t like: * Exactly who and what I was meant not to like – it was easy to hate the bad guys! * Knowing that the drug crisis exists and that OD’s occur all too often Did I enjoy this book? Yes Would I read more in this series? Yes Thank you to NetGalley, Entangled Press, and Inkslinger PR for the ARC – This is my honest review 4-5 Stars

This is the first book in the K-9 special ops series. It is the story of Adam “Deck” Decker, a DEA Agent and Tori Sampson, an ER Physician. There is a new synthetic opioid circulating on the streets called Gray Death and the current batch is extremely lethal. Deck and Tori meet when one of Decks friends end up with an overdose while on a raid and Tori saves his life. Both Tori and Deck mistrust the others profession due to personal reasons, but Deck convinces her to help the DEA and try to track down the drug lord responsible. This was my first book with Ms. O’ Fallon. I must give her points for doing her research extremely well. She was well versed in the different opioids and their lethality and assume she did similar research with the DEA agents. She avoided making them out to be cowboys and discussions of HIPAA and probable cause were held. The writing was good, characters and plot twists interesting. She certainly kept me guessing about who it was until close to the end (usually I figure these things out quickly – I had a short list but vacillated between them). The initial set up seemed a bit unrealistic e.g., Deck allowing Tori to go on raids with him. Thor was fabulous and overall, the story was extremely enjoyable. This was a HFN as is always the case with such books. I highly recommend. I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.