Lots of adrenaline-driven action, a departure from Ware’s usual wire-taut mysteries.
When a security expert is murdered, his wife will stop at nothing to find the killer—even as she becomes suspect No. 1.
Jacintha “Jack” Cross is a “penetration tester”: She’s the boots-on-the-ground person for testing out security systems, while her husband, Gabe, does the same for cybersecurity. Leaving a job one night, Jack is picked up by the police—an occupational hazard—and when she returns home, she finds Gabe’s body, throat slit. In shock, Jack reports the murder, talks to the police again, and goes to stay with her older sister, Helena Wick, for a day. When she’s asked to return to the station for a few more questions, Jack quickly realizes that she’s under suspicion—and so she goes on the run. With the help of her sister and Cole Garrick, Gabe’s oldest friend, she’s able to elude capture and begin her own investigation, determined to find her husband’s killer. Apparently, Gabe had found a “zero-day exploit,” a backdoor vulnerability, in a popular app, one that could be worth a lot of money to governments and bad actors. Ware has often highlighted technology as a malignant, uncontrollable force in her novels, and it’s frequently at odds with her luxurious, somewhat timeless settings. But in this novel, tech is front and center. Despite the contemporary trappings, though, the story is still a familiar one: It's The Fugitive if the main characters were women. There's plenty of excitement—chases, break-ins, shady bitcoin deals, an impending medical emergency—but the pool of characters is too small to leave much suspense about the mystery of Gabe’s death. Jack is a strong and fearless heroine, and Ware is always a master of setting and atmosphere, but the great reveal makes one wonder: Was it all worth it? Or more accurately, couldn’t Jack have figured this out much faster? Did it all have to come down to the poetic moment when she has nothing left?
Lots of adrenaline-driven action, a departure from Ware’s usual wire-taut mysteries.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781982155292
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.
The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.
Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063396524
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
