Book Review: ‘The New Neighbor: A Novel’ By Karen Cleveland

CIA analyst Beth Bradford has worked for the bureau for a long time and has worked on finding terrorist ‘The Neighbor’ and has now been taken off the case. She also just brought her youngest kid to college, sold her house and her husband has left her. She it’s been a day for her. But she’s not giving up on finding the Neighbor and she gets a piece of information she didn’t have before and thinks it’s someone in the neighborhood she just moved away from. She starts showing up in cul-de-sac (which is a clue about the Neighbor, who is recruiting people. She starts making charges against her friends and everyone thinks she’s going crazy. After getting some confessions but not the main person, it finally dawns on her who it is and it shocks the hell out of her. But things are happening now and the terrorists have a plan for this night and only Beth can stop it. There’s several twists and turns and we never really find out until the final twist on the final page (no peaking). The book is masterfully written and it could be any number of people who is the baddie. So many false flags, makes this a thrilling story, right to the very end. Just a great job from author Karen Cleveland.

You can pick up The New Neighbor in stores on Tuesday, July 26th from Ballantine.