The Troubleshooters series by Suzanne Brockmann is combined Romance Novel, mystery, and military. The books feature:
(a) SEAL Team Sixteen and its members, both current and former.
(b) FBI agents
(c) The Troubleshooters, a private security firm made up of ex-FBI agents, ex-SEALS, and former members of law enforcement.
The series is known for its extended arcs and for featuring two romances per book. The primary romance is guaranteed to work out, but the secondary romance will most likely be an arc that continues into later books before it hits full culmination.
Examples of:
- A Father to His Men: Tom Paoletti.
- Abusive Parents: Roger Starrett, Sr.
- Age-Gap Algebra: Sometimes goes hand-in-hand with the series' many May-December Romances; Max especially expresses issues over this, since Gina is nearly 20 years his junior. Gina, on the other hand, has no problems with this.
- The Alcoholic: Robin, Mary Lou, Ihbraham, Sam's mother, Brooke Bryant
- The Baby Trap: Mary Lou pulls this on Sam, and eventually realizes how wrong she was to do it.
- Battle Couple: a lot of couples in this series count as this, but Sam and Alyssa are the
first and most prominent. - Belligerent Sexual Tension: Sam and Alyssa, in the early books.
- Bodyguard Crush: Subverted in Hot Target. Jane Mercedes Chawick is actually initially annoyed by Cosmo's presence. When she can't get him to go away, she holds a press conference implying she's sleeping with him. This majorly annoys Cosmo who points out that he's part of a fledgling bodyguard service that mostly protects wives, mothers, and teen and young adult daughters. The last thing they want is potential clients believing they are as unprofessional as to sleep with their clientele.
- Brainless Beauty: Mary Lou and Tracy, both of whom get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
- Bury Your Gays: Ben, but he is away at war at the time, so it's more justified.
- Closet Key: Jules for Robin, much to the latter's surprise.
- Cold Sniper: Alyssa originally, before she joined the FBI.
- Command Roster and The Squad
- Crazy Survivalist: Arguably Donny DaCosta, who's made enough money off the Internet so that he never has to leave his house again. Where he stays in his closet with enough food and water, his laptop, his tinfoil hat... Troubled Fetal Position and No Medication for Me also come up for him.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Donny is always spotting aliens around the neighborhood. One of whom turns out to be an actual terrorist.
- Cunning Linguist: Nils
- Dogged Nice Guy: Dave
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Sam and Alyssa in Gone Too Far.
- False Start: At the end of Over the Edge Sam and Alyssa finally make plans to have dinner together. Sam comes to the date to tell Alyssa that Mary Lou is pregnant and he's going to marry her.
- Gay Best Friend: Jules to Alyssa and Sam.
- Genius Bruiser: Ken Karmody.
- Going Cold Turkey: Robin resolves to quit drinking in order to prove to Jules that he's serious about being together. The effects of withdrawal hit just as the gang has been taken hostage by Florida mobsters and are isolated on a boat at sea. Jules does help Robin go through rehab after the hostage situation is resolved.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Danny and Izzy, though they come close to outright killing each other in a few books.
- Hidden Depths: Whitney, who turns out not to be as much of a Spoiled Brat as you thought she was. Also is excellent with a rifle.
- Hostage Situation: Meg gets forced to take hostages. Also done with a Plane Full Of Innocents, and one Innocent Bystander, Gina, pretending to be the particular hostage the bad guys want. Max is the hostage negotiator in the situation, which is how they meet.
- Love Triangle: see Wrong Guy First, but Dave, Decker, and Sophia is a pretty prominent one as well.
- Mama Bear: Mary Lou.
- May–December Romance: A number of them, though unusually the 'December' is often the woman. Molly and Jones, Joan and Mike (a seven year difference only, but she's very bothered by it), Meg and John (another smaller age difference, but she's very bothered by it; a Double Standard in that she's not bothered by her husband being about fifteen years older than her). Also Gina and Max, whose older and bothered by it.
- There's also Izzy and Eden, with Izzy being 11 years older than Eden. The age difference doesn't bother them, but it seriously bothers Eden's older brother and Izzy's teammate, Danny. This can be justified in part by the fact that when Izzy falls in love with Eden, she's about 17.
- The Medic: Jay
- Mistaken for Terrorist: Ihbraham.
- Mugging the Monster: Jules looks like an easy target. He isn't.
- The Neidermeyer: Admiral Tucker, nemesis to Tom Paoletti.
- Older Than They Look: Jules spent his early years in the FBI as a 20-something playing teenagers in undercover operations.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Roger Starrett hates being named after his father (see above), so he's gone by Ringo, Houston, and Sam (the most well known one).
- From Gone Too Far: "It's someone named Sam or Roger or Ringo — he wasn't too clear on which one it was — and he says to tell you it's an emergency?"
- Parental Abandonment: plenty of examples. Most shocking is Sophia's case, where her parents abandoned her in their apartment in Katmandu when she was eleven. Good thing she could pass for a boy...
- The Quiet One: Cosmo. Little does anyone know he's a PFLAG member, has a gay dad and a mom who loves showtunes.
- Our Presidents Are Different: President Bryant is a President Personable.
- Rape as Drama: Gina and Janine
- Sexy Secretary: Tracy
- Shotgun Wedding: Sam marries Mary Lou when he finds out she's pregnant. The marriage is not a very happy one.
- Southern-Fried Private: Sam, though he has hidden depths, comes off as one when you meet him.
- Starbucks Skin Scale
- Stereotype Flip: Ihbraham looks like a terrorist, and isn't. "Bob Schlegel", a.k.a. Warren Canton and Husaam Abdul-Fataah, on the other hand, is a Western Terrorist who gets away with lots of murder because he was born a blond, blue-eyed Midwest boy.
- Straight Gay: Robin, who takes awhile to realize this.
- Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
- Those Wacky Nazis: A few of the villains tend to subscribe to the Nazi ideology. Robin is nearly shot by a neo-Nazi at a movie premiere.
- Wild Card: Ken Karmody, it's even his nickname.
- Wrong Guy First: Done with both genders. Adam for Robin and Jules, and Mary Lou for Sam and Alyssa. Also Decker for Sophia (and vice versa).
