The Naturals; World, Chase Me Down

The blurb on the cover of "The Naturals" says it's "Criminal Minds for the YA set". Being a huge fan of "Criminal Minds" as well as YA books, it seemed like a no-brainer. And it was! I loved it. Cassie is seventeen and recruited by the FBI for a program where they train teens with natural talents to become agents. Cassie moves to Quantico, where she is put up in a house with four other kids close to her age: Michael, who can read emotions, Lia, who can tell if someone is lying, Sloane, who is a whiz at stats and probabilities, and Dean, who is a natural profiler like Cassie. Cassie starts training and learning how to deal with the group of teenagers she's now living with. She and her cohorts beg to help with the current case the FBI is working on, but they are kept on the sidelines, until it becomes clear that the case is somehow related to Cassie's mom's disappearance five years earlier. It reminded me a lot of "I Hunt Killers" by Barry Lyga, which I adored. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
  

"World, Chase Me Down" by Andrew Hilleman was one that happened to catch my eye at work so on a whim I checked it out and I'm glad I did, I enjoyed it. It's based on a real person that I've never heard of, Pat Crowe. In Omaha in 1900, Pat just wants to live a simple life. He wants a nice home for his wife and baby daughter, and to make a go of the little butcher shop he and his partner Billy have opened up. In order to get the start up capital, Pat had to go in cahoots with a local political bigwig, Dennison. The beef baron in town, Cudahy, doesn't appreciate the competition, even if Pat and Billy's butcher shop doesn't really make a dent in his living, and Cudahy has Dennison shut Pat down. Poor Pat loses everything. He and Billy kidnap Edward Cudahy, Jr., and hold him for ransom. After getting the $25,000 from Cudahy Sr. and letting Jr. go, they go on the run, endlessly pursued by Pinkertons and the law. The story was told in alternating chapters of what happened as Pat is nearing the end of his life, looking back. It was nicely done. I wish more authors wrote Westerns, I love reading them but they're not so very popular anymore.