The Mayors of New York: A Bill Smith/Lydia Chin Mystery

PIs Smith and Chin tackle a pair of hot potato mysteries in Edgar winner Rozan’s excellent 15th outing for the duo (after 2021’s Family Business). Bree Hamilton, who handles PR for Carole McCann, the city’s first female mayor, enlists Smith to help her boss: McCann’s 15-year-old son, Mark, has apparently run away, taking money, clothes, and a backpack with him. The mayor is hoping to keep his disappearance from the NYPD, out of concern that involving them could cost her at the bargaining table during sensitive salary negotiations with the Detectives’ Endowment Association. Despite his personal distaste for McCann (“I’m a New Yorker. I have a God-given right to dislike politicians”), Smith, who frequently ran away from home himself as a child, agrees to take the case. He soon discovers it might connect with the apparent suicide of a teenage overachiever that Chin has been asked investigate. Rozan has never been better at quip-filled dialogue that Rex Stout would be proud of, and once again excels at evoking the tangled power dynamics of contemporary New York City. This superior series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Josh Getzler, H.G. Literary. (Dec.)