This Time, Death Rode a Dark Horse

Dark Horse - Gregg Hurwitz

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare… Aragon Urrea came home from an errand and found his 18-year-old daughter Angelina gone. Kidnapped by a business rival, sort of; but when that rival is the head of the most brutal narcotics cartel in northern Mexico, you cannot call the Feds. What’s a father to do? Urrea picked up the phone and dialed 1-800-NOWHERE… and Evan Smoak answered with that signature phrase, “Do you need my help?”

Rosenstiel's Latest is More Thoughtful than Thrilling

 The Days to Come - Tom Rosenstiel

Everyone knows Washington, D.C., is gridlocked. At least it was until David Traynor was elected POTUS. Like a recent real-world president, Traynor had campaigned as a disrupter; but unlike that president he intended to disrupt for people instead of party; so much so that he chose his running mate from the opposition. One of the reasons their campaign succeeded is the team of Rena and Brooks, the investigation/image firm that saved the career of Traynor’s VP. But even as the new president set out to change the way government works (for the better…), Peter Rena’s world began crumbling around him.

Psychopaths on the Warpath

 Never Saw Me Coming - Vera Kurian

If Vera Kurian is to be believed – and apparently, she has the proper training to make this statement – there’s about a 2 or 3 percent chance that whoever’s reading this right now is a psychopath. That’s not to say that you are, as popular fiction might have it, a serial killer. No, you’re merely antisocial and/or empathy-impaired and/or egotistical. Based on that description, 2 or 3 percent of the population seems rather low…

…but the main characters of Kurian’s debut novel, Never Saw Me Coming, are pretty close to 100% psychopathic. That’s because they’re members of the seven college students enrolled in a study run by renowned psychologist Leonard Wyman; youngsters who’ve received full-boat rides to a DC-area college so he could study them in the wild. Well, actually, one’s faking it – a rather strange twist given that psychopaths usually fake being “normal.” Anyway, protagonist Chloe Sevre – 18, gorgeous, smart, psychopathic coed – is really there so she can murder Will Bachman. Truth be told, he kind of deserves it…

Paretsky's Warshawski Mystery has a "Breakdown" Along the Way

 Breakdown - Sara Paretsky

Some people have a knack for being in the right place at the right time: I’m thinking PowerBall winners, venture capitalists, or the guy who Youtubed the video of a kid biting his brother’s finger. At the other extreme, there’s V. I. Warshawski, whose knack is clearly for being in the wrong place at the right time. Case in point is the night her cousin Petra called her looking for one of the teens in her book club. The girl and her friends had sneaked into a cemetery to dance in the moonlight, hoping to summon the heroine’s alter ego from a runaway bestseller series of teen VampRoms. Vic found the girls, of course – she’s a good detective – but she also found a body... and not one of the cemetery’s clients.

Brennan's New Series Starts with a Dud

The Third to Die - Allison Brennan

When you read at least fifty mystery or thriller novels a year, you can’t always depend on a half-dozen or so favorite authors to have a new release ready for you when you finish your latest. As a consequence, I read a lot of novels written by authors whose work, to be kind, I will probably not seek out again in the future. The latest in my string of one-and-dones is Allison Brennan, who released The Third to Die – Quinn & Costa Thriller Book 1 last year. Given the pace of Brennan’s work, she’s probably already finished number four. Here’s the plot in about 115 words: