Baited

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WHEN THE HUNTER BECOMES THE PREY,
WILL THE RULES OFENGAGEMENT CHANGE

Not everything appears as it seems when one adventures ends with the hero riding off into the sunset. It’s easy to forget there’s paperwork to do, questions to answer, and bodies to account for. Sometimes the people overseeing all this aren’t so nice about it, either. Sometimes they’re downright irritating. Inevitably, those are the ones with the power to make life a living hell.

Baited follows a hypothetical storyline after which Congress institutes changes in the Constitution to revamp the system of criminal prosecution. One of those changes is the formation of WANT Bureaus (Warrants Apprehension, Negotiation, and Termination squads) in certain police departments. These laws give the police latitude in the hunt for the most heinous, dangerous criminals to ever populate our society, including the use of deadly force.

Angel Soren is one such WANT officer, a rare woman in a male-dominated unit. She has the wherewithal to chamber a round, sight down a rifle, and pull the trigger on an unsuspecting criminal on the lam—if that’s what’s written in the judicial order of execution. Her ideology of crime and punishment is entrenched in the reality of seeing the suffering of victims day in and day out, and knowing that the old ways of bringing about justice just aren’t working.

This is gritty, hard-hitting fiction, written by Casey Cofer. In a voice spoken by the main character, the story revolves not around the mindless and repetitive executions of one criminal after another, but the ramifications of when one person disagrees with the constitutional changes and sets out to prove that the police are no different than the criminals when given the license to kill. Wrapped in the difficulty Angel has in trying to reconcile her anger from a previous incident in which she and her team are investigated for manslaughter, this is the last thing she needs in her life. This particular story has several layers and works them expertly into the main conflict of finding a killer who hides behind a political agenda. All the while, as Angel tries to balance herself between working for the police department and a secret life of fighting in an illegal fight club, she finds her life spinning wildly out of control.

The premise of changing the Constitution to protect society against the proliferation of violent criminals is an interesting debate to ponder. Whether readers pick up this book with a predisposition against capital punishment or an open mind, they are sure to have their beliefs taken on a roller coaster ride betwixt and between the moral quandaries that comes with the prospect of taking a life. In the end, they may find themselves of a mindset they never thought themselves capable of and not wanting to disclose in public.