Book Review – Under the Banner of Valor by Gary Corbin @garycorbin

About the Book

Val Dawes and the WAVE Squad get called into action after Clayton’s family planning clinics receive ominous threat: Close the clinics, or else.

WAVE Squad member Valorie Dawes takes this threat personally, as her closest friend since childhood, Beth, discloses that she’s pregnant and is considering an abortion.

Can Val support her friend and keep her safe from the armed madman? Or will Beth’s stubborn recklessness thrust her into harm’s way?

Format: eARC (455 pages) Publisher: Double Diamond Publishing
Publication date: 7th May 2024 Genre: Crime, Thriller

Find Under the Banner of Valor on Goodreads

Purchase Under the Banner of Valor from Amazon UK [Link provided for convenience not as poart of an affiliate programme]

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My Review

Under the Banner of Valor is the fifth book in Gary Corbin’s crime series featuring rookie cop, Valorie Dawes. In fact, that’s not quite correct because Val is no longer a rookie, although some of her fellow police officers still treat her as one. I think Under the Banner of Valor could be read as a standalone but then you’d miss out on seeing how Val’s character has developed over the series and learning about the experiences earlier in her life that have given her such a determination to tackle violence against women. You can get an insight into this in my recent Q&A with Gary and, if you follow the links from the titles, you can read my reviews of previous books in the series: A Better Part of Valor and Mother of Valor.

Skilled in martial arts and a keen runner, Val’s someone you don’t want to mess with. She’s smart but she’s not infallible and sometimes her forthrightness puts others’ backs up. She has short shrift for inefficient, lazy or downright incompetent officers and unfortunately she encounters her fair share of them while working on cases which initially seem to have no connection. Plus misogyny is not yet dead in the Clayton police force. Fortunately, she now has the lovely Gil Kryzinski to support her, although it’s taken a bit of time for her to be able to truly trust another person. (I’ll whisper so Val can’t hear: I have a bit of a crush on Gil.)

The author has a knack of incorporating contemporary issues into the plot of his novels. Previous books have tackled political corruption, sex trafficking and right wing extremism. This time it’s campaigners against abortion and the shady world of incels.

We’re introduced to the sniper attacking abortion clinics early on although his actual identity is not revealed, we just know him as Stafford. For much of the book he’s one step ahead of the police partly because of his meticulous preparation for the attacks and partly because they’re missing some crucial links between this and another case. A rather pathetic individual, Stafford is fuelled by a determination to prove himself to the other members of his incel group whose doctrines appeal to his feelings of rejection and sense that he’s been short-changed in life through no fault of his own.

Another thing you can rely on in one of the author’s crime novels is meticulous detail about police procedure and the step-by-step process of investigating a crime: narrowing down suspects, cross-checking alibis, interviewing witnesses, identifying connections between the victims, trawling social media for background information on suspects. With her regular partner absent because of personal issues, Val teams up with another female officer although it turns out they have very different approaches when it comes to interrogating suspects.

The tension builds as the book progresses becoming a breathless race against time and involving some narrow escapes for both Val and those close to her.

If you’re looking for a skilfully crafted, exciting police procedural with a strong female character, then Under the Banner of Valor will tick all your boxes. And if you’re already a fan of the series, the author reveals there’s another book on the way.

My thanks to the author for my digital review copy.

In three words: Compelling, dramatic, assured
Try something similar: Payback (DI Charley Mann #1) by R.C. Bridgestock

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About the Author

Gary is a novelist and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR. In addition to ten published novels, his creative and journalistic work has been published in BrainstormNW, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, and Global Envision among others. His plays have enjoyed critical acclaim and have been produced on many Portland area stages.

Gary is a member of the Willamette Writers Group, Nine Bridges Writers, the Northwest Editors Guild, PDX Playwrights, and the Writers Dojo Writing Workshop. He also participates in workshops and conferences in the Portland, Oregon area and on the North Oregon Coast.

A homebrewer and home coffee roaster, Gary is a member of the Oregon Brew Crew and a BJCP Beer Judge. He loves to ski, cook, and root for his beloved Patriots, LSU Bengal Tigers, and Red Sox. And when that’s not enough, he escapes to the Oregon coast with his sweetheart. (Photo: Author website)

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