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Clive Cussler's latest collaborator in his "Oregon Files" series is Boyd Morrison, who got his start with some thrillers of his own. In his Oregon Files entry, Morrison references one of his own characters, Tyler Locke, whom we first meet when he joins a beautiful archaeologist on a hunt for Noah's Ark in 2010's The Ark.

Dilara Kenner has been told by an old family friend that she needs to find Locke, but her search is hampered by the fact that people are trying to kill her. The friend himself died before he could tell Dilara what he wanted her to know, leaving her and Locke with the twin tasks of puzzling out what kind of conspiracy is involved and keeping the conspirators from killing them. The hunt for the Ark, an obsession of Dilara's archaeologist father, plays a role as well, but just exactly how is buried beneath legend.

Morrison writes a lot like Cussler when he's on a roll. His action scenes zip along with a lot of energy and punch, and they're focused and well-drawn. Character development is limited and done not much better than adequately -- and in some cases less than that. Morrison also screeches the story to a halt for a several-page lecture/discussion on why the Noah story has to be a myth (wooden boat that big couldn't survive, no evidence of global flood, etc., etc.), all of which has a role to play in the story but which probably could have been woven into the story instead of thrown into it as a roadblocking expository conversation.

But he doesn't completely sink his story with those, and he has a villain with an appropriately weird and terrifying scheme to end and/or take over the world, so while thriller fans can certainly find better novels in their genre, The Ark represented a promising beginning for Locke's adventures.

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Although Jean Merrill's 1964 The Pushcart War is marketed as a young reader's book, it carries a significant dose of satire that can make adult readers chuckle and would probably require those young readers to stretch their heads a little bit. Which is never a bad idea, come to think of it.

In the New York City of 2026, trucks have come to dominate the landscape, some of them so huge that cars can't even see around them anymore. The Three -- owners of the three largest trucking companies -- have colluded to squeeze out any attempts to regulate their industry and to make common cause with political officials who can keep things running their way. One day a truck backs into the pushcart of Morris the Florist, wrecking it and knocking him into a pickle barrel. The pushcart operators of New York City gather and decide something has to be done or their way of life and businesses are in danger of extinction.

Under the lead of Maxie Hammerman, the unofficial Pushcart King, and a woman who comes to be known as General Anna, the operators create a pea-shooter they can use to flatten truck tires and make it clear to New Yorkers that the trucks are the problem. Although the first phase of the pea-shooter campaign is a success, there are several more obstacles to overcome in order to make the streets safe for all traffic and counter the The Three's plan to eventually remove all vehicles from the streets other than trucks.

Merrill writes her tale as a young person's historical account of events already explained for adults by academics, published ten years later to help keep the lessons of the conflict in mind. She has a wry tone that offers laughs for younger readers as well as some that might go past their heads but which adults appreciate -- not unlike the best Disney movies. She initially set her conflict in 1976 and used it as an allegory about bullying. It was wildly successful, earning Merrill a 1965 Fulbright Fellowship and giving rise to The Pushcart Prize, an annual anthology of the best work from small presses. I remember it being a pleasure to read when I was a kid and it's a pleasure to re-read and think about today. Ronni Silbert's homey little illustrations only add to the fun of the book.

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A lot of long-running series will find ruts after awhile, as the author simply marshals a different version of the expected set-pieces and runs them out with some new names or newer features. Although there are times that reading Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis has offered a distinctly familiar feel, Jonathan Kellerman has often put out some effort in bringing something new to the table when he presents his latest edition of their work, 2015's Motive.

Detective Sturgis has found a case that relates two seemingly unconnected murders, so he consults with his friend, therapist Alex Delaware. The two women didn't know each other or have any connection, so it's unclear why the killer seems to have chosen them. As Sturgis and Delaware probe the more recent of the two killings, they find several people with motives to want the woman, Ursula Corey, dead. But the leads don't pan out, until a completely unexpected turn leads the pair not only in a new direction, but also an old one.

Kellerman spends time investigating the idea of "motive," hence the name of the novel. Several people benefit from Ursula's death, which gives them motives to want her killed. But are those motives strong enough to move people to actual murder? And when the killer is discovered and the particular bends in his or her mind that are used to justify the murders and their signature revealed, then our principal characters muse a little on how things that just irritate ordinary people or make them angry can bring about the murderous response of the unbalanced killer.

All that speculation makes Motive interesting, even if the interest is undercut by how many different bit players and how much misdirection Kellerman provides. The repetition of the motif makes its own rut that the story needs to climb out of. Even so, Kellerman's determination to try to keep his familiar characters fresh and try something new is welcome, whether or not the execution is as laudable as the intention.