{"id":5340,"date":"2026-06-11T01:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5340"},"modified":"2026-06-11T17:10:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T17:10:04","slug":"one-split-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=5340","title":{"rendered":"One Split Second"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After losing her reelection bid, Sheriff Jenny Almond makes a solo trip to meet Anthony Alvarez, who has called her with a cryptic message. What she finds upon arrival changes everything\u2014a gunshot rings out, a shadowy figure emerges from the darkness, and in a split-second decision, she pulls the trigger. Alvarez is dead, and Almond is facing the unthinkable: a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting an unarmed man. Desperate for answers, Almond turns to her trusted friend, Seattle detective Tracy Crosswhite. With Tracy&#8217;s attorney-husband Dan stepping in as her legal defense, Tracy launches her own parallel investigation into what really happened that night. The trail leads somewhere unexpected\u2014back more than four decades to a chilling cold case in which Alvarez was the prime suspect in a teenage girl&#8217;s disappearance, a wound that never fully healed for the surrounding community. <strong>Dugoni masterfully illustrates how a single moment can irrevocably alter the course of lives, weaving together past and present with the kind of propulsive, assured storytelling that has made his Tracy Crosswhite series a standout in modern crime fiction.<\/strong> Whether the action is unfolding in a courtroom or out in the field, Dugoni keeps the tension taut and the pages turning. Long-time fans will find this latest installment deeply satisfying, and those coming to the series fresh will quickly understand why Dugoni has earned his place among the genre&#8217;s elite.\u2014 <em>Jeff Ayers<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After losing her reelection bid, Sheriff Jenny Almond makes a solo trip to meet Anthony Alvarez, who has called her with a cryptic message. What she finds upon arrival changes&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[55,65,56],"class_list":["post-5340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-mystery-detective","tag-police-procedural","tag-women-sleuths"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Second-400x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Second-400x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Jeff Ayers","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=6"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}