The New Neighbor

At the start of this clever national security cyberwar thriller cum suburban status-envy mystery from bestseller Cleveland (You Can Run), CIA counterintelligence analyst Beth Bradford drops her youngest child off at college, then sees her life unravel. As she mourns the sale of the suburban Virginia house where she raised her family, her husband announces he’s leaving her. She’s sidelined at work, shunted into a training role instead of continuing her 15-year pursuit of a U.S.-based covert Iranian operative known as “The Neighbor.” Dazed by the speed at which everything in her life is upended, she cultivates an increasingly unhealthy obsession with the new occupants of her old house, Madeline and Josh Sterling, conflating her personal crisis with an off-the-books investigation of the Neighbor’s identity. She digs into the Sterlings’ backgrounds, sets up surveillance of a cul-de-sac in her old neighborhood, and appears increasingly unhinged to her friends and former neighbors. The strong plot takes several convincing twists that vindicate Beth’s initially outlandish suspicions as it builds toward a well-paced, if not entirely surprising, conclusion. Cleveland consistently entertains. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Co. (July)