Risk Factor: A Buddy Steel Mystery

At the start of bestseller Brandman’s solid fourth mystery featuring sheriff’s deputy Buddy Steel (after 2019’s Wild Card), Buddy, who’s taking some time off in Utah, returns home to Freedom, Calif., after the home of his ailing sheriff father is ransacked in the latest of a series of burglaries. The stakes rise when a policeman is shot during the next break-in. Meanwhile, a series of cyberthefts is devastating local businesses, and Buddy turns for help to Quinn Anthony, a digital whiz who can track any cybercriminal. Buddy and Quinn lurch awkwardly toward a romantic connection as they narrow their search for the perpetrator. Buddy finds a novel solution to the cyberthefts that mixes compassion and high-action violence. In the burglaries case, meanwhile, an O.J. Simpson–style car chase ends in a dramatic arrest. Screenwriter Brandman uses snappy dialogue to keep the pace quick and the action kinetic. This series is a natural for TV adaptation. (Apr.)