The New Neighbor - It's a Cozy Spy Thriller?

The New Neighbor - Karen Cleveland

If, like me, you read a lot of mystery and thriller novels; you’re well aware of the subgenre of “cozy” mysteries: a protagonist, usually female, stumbles over dead bodies (always free of gore) in the everyday course of business. Cooking is a favorite profession, so are crafting and bookselling. It’s a classic case of willing suspension of disbelief – after all, Crabapple Cove, Maine, is unlikely to have a higher murder rate than Chicago, Bogotá, or Mogadishu. Even with that in mind, though, today’s book is a new subgenre for me; something I call the "cozy spy thriller." Meet Beth Bradford, heroine of Karen Cleveland‘s fourth novel, The New Neighbor.

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.