When we last saw Antonia Scott (in Black Wolf, book two of this trilogy), she watched her partner, Jon Gutiérrez, being bundled into a van. That cliffhanger marks the beginning of this book and the narrative rockets along from there at breakneck speed. Antonia and Jon are being targeted by their arch-nemesis, Mr White, who has implanted an explosive into Jon’s neck.
White will detonate it unless they can complete the tasks he sets them: cracking unsolvable crimes in impossible timeframes. Only someone with Antonia’s unique brain stands a chance. Even then they sense that their quest will be fruitless. Working alongside White is Antonia’s dark mirror image: Sandra, the assassin who has wanted to kill Antonia all along. And all the while Gutiérrez can sense the countdown for the explosive stitched into his neck: tick, tick, tick …
The clock is elemental in this story – it counts down to the moment Antonia and Jon might fail in the tasks White sets them. The hands of an analogue clock also sweep around the clockface and end up back where they started. Similarly, the narrative returns to scenes within the first two books, before answering the questions that have nagged Antonia Scott since book one, page one. The backstories of each character propel the narrative to its inevitable denouement. There
are betrayals, confessions and twists you won’t see coming.
Yes, there are cliches, and dad jokes, but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t a book you read to debate the difference between metonymy and synecdoche. It’s a classic, fast-paced, page-turning thriller, designed to tie loose ends and bring the trilogy to an exciting climax … and on that, it delivers without question.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
Read a book review of Red Queen
Read a book review of Black Wolf
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juan Gómez-Jurado (he/him) is a journalist and novelist, whose Antonia Scott trilogy has now sold more than two million copies in the original Spanish, is being published in seventeen countries, and is currently being adapted by Amazon in a streaming series expected to debut in 2023.
He lives in Madrid, Spain.
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