Police procedurals are on the menu in three compelling fall mysteries, but leave room for a rich multi-character tale featuring a small-town reporter and an engaging Hanukkah anthology that scrambles the holiday’s traditions into eight so-bad-they’re-good nights. Fatal Intrusion By Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado Thomas & Mercer: 444 pages, $29 Out now This first-time collaboration starts with some brilliant misdirection in introducing Dennison Fallow, who viciously kills a man in San Diego. He is thwarted by his next victim, Selina Sanchez, a quick-thinking young student he attacks in Perris.
She learned her self-defense and perp-identification skills from her big sister, Carmen, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations who takes a leave to get to the bottom of the attack. For off-the-books assistance, she calls a man with whom she has a complicated past. Jake Heron is a university professor and “intrusionist,” “an academic who worked to safeguard private companies and governments and individuals.
” When these two team up, the fun really starts as the layers of red herrings and types of intrusion Jake advises his clients to avoid are peeled back to reveal a conspiracy much larger than the serial killer trope that jump-starts the novel. Deaver and Maldonado have crafted a white-knuckle ride, although its forward momentum is undercut at times by overexplaining in clumps of exposition rather than allowing the reader to catch up more organically. Even so, .