Disguised Threat

Disguised Threat knows exactly what it is: a warm, cozy-leaning romantic suspense where the dread is real but the heart is the point. And it delivers on that promise from the first page.

The opening works. Marina Elliot stands frozen in her condo lobby, then bolts to her car as sandhill cranes squawk "like they were judging her recent choices." Within ten pages, the hook is set: a stalker presumed dead, a murdered girlfriend, a fake-bearded man stepping out of a faded van. Murray then does what good commercial suspense does and hands the reader the villain's point of view early. Karl Becker, wolfing a sausage biscuit while staring at Marina's photograph, is menacing and pathetic at once. His simmering resentment of his brother Tom adds a second pressure point I want to see pay off. Plot is promises kept, and these chapters make several.

The tension and romance are balanced with real craft. Marina's mad dash to Danny's door, followed by the white van that turns out to belong to the neighbors, is a smart false alarm that sells her frayed nerves. Nick stepping in to soothe her nightmare, the stiff hug, and the folded thank-you note he tucks into his wallet carry the slow-burn romance. Both leads misread each other in ways that are endearing rather than contrived.

The quirky supporting cast sets this apart. Laszlo, the upside-down-hanging, mind-reading, "Nosferatu" partner, gives the book a distinct comic register and a likable voice. Benny the dog adds heart. The Florida setting feels lived in, from the sandhill cranes to the town of Murcie Lake, whose name comes from murciélago, the Spanish word for bat. Readers who want suspense with humor and affection will find exactly that here.