After a 22-year career in law enforcement, Cal State Long Beach graduate Janice Cantore has decided to become a writer.
Her first novel, a romantic-suspense work entitled “Accused,” will hit bookstores next month. It is the first of three in the Pacific Coast Justice Series.
The story revolves around a young boy who is wrongfully charged with murder and a local police officer’s quest to prove the boy’s innocence.
“I got the idea for the novel when I was working as a juvenile detective,” Cantore said. “There was a kid in custody for a particularly gruesome crime and I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘What if he didn’t do it?’ Writers often play the ‘what if’ game.”
In 1992, Cantore was an on-duty police officer during the Rodney King riots.
“It was surreal,” she said. “[Mobs of high school students] stormed a super market and were trying to get into the Long Beach Mall. I was living in Pasadena at the time and remember seeing L.A. on fire. The images have stayed with me forever.”
After the riots subsided, Cantore began to write.
“I tried to write about that time,” Cantore said. “I penned several bad short stories, but could not capture the feelings that consumed me at the time.”
Cantore said “Accused” was rejected and revised many times before being accepted by Tyndale Publishers.
“I learned that there is great truth in the saying that ‘writing is re-writing,'” she said.
Cantore said she had not always aspired to be a police officer. While atUC Irvine, she majored in biology and quickly decided that the career was not for her.
“I decided to go back to school,” she said. “I decided on a physical education degree with a concentration in athletic training and enrolled.”
During this time, Cantore studied at CSULB. After graduating, she worked at a sports medicine clinic.
However, Cantore realized that the career wasn’t going anywhere so she decided to apply to the Long Beach Police Department.
While at the LBPD, Cantore worked in the field for 16 years and six years part-time, after suffering a back injury.
“I had hurt my back and the health department put a restriction on me,” Cantore said. “I worked for the police department in a part-time non-career capacity before retiring completely.”
Cantore said she has been excited and a little overwhelmed about the praise her book has received.
“It’s a work of fiction, so it won’t change the world, but I do hope people buy it, read it and are glad that they did,” she said.
“Abducted,” the second novel in the Pacific Coast Justice Series, is due out this summer. The third will be released sometime next year.
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