Zero Days

April 15, 2023
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.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 17, 2023
This too-familiar thriller from Ware (The It Girl) centers on a woman devastated by her husband’s murder and her emergence as the primary suspect. Married couple Jacintha Cross and Gabriel Medway operate Crossways Security, a London firm that stress-tests security systems. After an unsuccessful assignment, Jacintha returns home to find Gabriel’s throat cut. Traumatized, she doesn’t call the police immediately, which pegs her as a person of interest. The situation becomes even worse when the widow gets an email informing her that Gabriel recently insured his own life for a million pounds and named her his beneficiary. Jacintha, who harbors hard feelings about the police after enduring an abusive relationship with a cop, goes on the run while trying to identify who’s behind the killing and why. Lackluster characterization and a shortage of surprises mar the cookie-cutter proceedings. Admirers of the author’s typically fresh takes on thriller staples will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Eve White, Eve White Literary.

Starred review from June 1, 2023

When her latest job testing the physical and digital security of a company goes awry, Jacintha "Jack" Cross ends up in police custody. At this point, Jack would normally call her husband Gabe, who directs their operations online from home, and have him get their client to vouch for them. However, for some reason Gabe is not picking up Jack's calls. Hours later, when Jack finally arrives home, she discovers why Gabe is not answering his phone: he has been murdered. As the police question Jack about what she found, she begins to realize that she is shaping up to be their number-one suspect. After putting her own spin on Christie's And Then There Were None with One by One, and then paying homage to the Golden Age of mystery writing with The It Girl, Ware switches things up with a high-stakes, high-tech novel of Hitchcockian suspense (think The 39 Steps) that deftly demonstrates why she is the chameleon of crime fiction. VERDICT From its resourceful, resilient protagonist to its seamlessly constructed, au courant plot, everything about Ware's newest novel is guaranteed to keep her fans up way past their bedtimes.--John Charles

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2023
Ware's latest thriller will not disappoint, different as it is from some of her earlier books. Jack (Jacintha) and her husband Gabe are "pen" (penetration) testers, hired by companies to check their computer security and ensure that they are hack-proof. Jack does the actual breaking and entering of the clients' offices, while Gabe handles the tech end of their "invasions" from their London house. In a failed assignment, she gets caught and arrested. When she eventually returns home, Jack finds that Gabe has been murdered while working at his computer. She becomes the prime suspect for a number of well-plotted reasons, and after being taken into custody, the resourceful Jack escapes from the police station armed only with a Sharpie. On the run and injured in the ensuing pursuit, she tries to put together the pieces of her husband's murder as her cell phone drains and her wound worsens. She's a latter-day Dr. Richard Kimble. A fugitive. The action and tension are relentless from the opening to the conclusion, which will astonish, but certainly not dismay, readers, who will be captivated by this very original and very real protagonist. It has been said that in Ruth Ware's books the pages just turn themselves. She has been heralded as "the new Agatha Christie" for good reason.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.