Red Queen

October 1, 2022

The daughter of a British diplomat and a Spanish mother, brilliant detective Antonia Scott refuses to work or even leave her apartment after personal trauma. Disgraced Bilbao police officer Jon Gutierrez is tasked with coaxing her back to solve a gruesome murder that seems to be spawning other crimes. First in a trilogy that sold over two million copies in Spain and is being produced as an Amazon streaming series. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

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January 9, 2023
At the start of this nail-biting thriller, the first in a trilogy, Spanish author Gómez-Jurado (The Traitor’s Emblem) hooks the reader with the tantalizing opening sentence: “Antonia Scott allows herself to think of suicide no more than three minutes a day.” Antonia is a genius, whose off-the-charts intelligence and analytical skills have made her a valued member of a covert organization that handles sensitive criminal investigations. Following the near-fatal shooting of her beloved husband, which has left him in a coma and for which she blames herself, Antonia has become a recluse in her Madrid home. But she’s drawn back into the fray by the kidnapping of Carla Ortiz, a Spanish bank executive and “heiress to the richest man in the world.” Antonia’s handler partners her with disgraced police inspector Jon Gutiérrez, and together they pursue the possibility that Carla’s abduction is linked to the grisly murder of a young boy, whose corpse was drained of its blood. Frequent and often startling plot twists help compensate for a few contrivances that lessen interest toward the end. Lisbeth Salander devotees will find much to like. Agent: Tom Colchie, Colchie Agency.

February 1, 2023
An exciting thriller set in Spain and recently translated from Spanish. Beleaguered by crime, the European Union has created the secret Red Queen project, the name inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, designed to "adapt continually to keep up with the bad guys." One of their tools is Antonia Scott, a non-cop who has a history of providing insights into the criminal mind. She is the smartest person in the world, and she never forgets anything. Her husband is in a coma for which she wrongly blames herself, and she contemplates suicide for a strict three minutes a day, along with a few other quirks. "My brain...isn't normal," she says. "I can do things others find impossible." Police pair her up with Inspector Jon Guti�rrez, an overweight gay cop whose career is in a peck of trouble for planting heroin to gain a conviction. Despite a chasm of differences, they quickly accept each other and work together to track down a criminal named Ezekiel who has slowly drained the blood from a young man's carotid artery. Then Ezekiel kidnaps Carla Ortiz, the daughter of the world's richest man. Ransom is out of the question because he just wants to teach the mogul a lesson. Antonia believes that Ezekiel kidnaps and kills for a very specific reason, probably for power. "Essentially, I'm a good person," Ezekiel tells himself. Good enough to think of Psalm 23, anyway, as he anoints one victim's head with oil. That doesn't mean there won't be blood, though. A scene with an explosion splatters grisly detail across a couple of pages, and there is a nice balance among character, action, and setting--a qanat, or underground water tunnel in Madrid, is a great place for an evildoer to set booby traps. Red Queen (Reina Roja in the original version) is the first of a completed trilogy written by G�mez-Jurado. The next two, Loba Negra (Black Wolf) and Rey Blanco (White King), must be translated into English, because thriller fans will be waiting. Fast-moving and quirky fiction from Madrid.

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Starred review from March 1, 2023
Antonia Scott was once Spain's Red Queen, part of an elite European Union crime-fighting unit devoted to foiling master criminals--like Dr. Evil, but for real. But after a severe personal trauma, she won't even leave her apartment and suffers debilitating panic attacks, ever at the mercy of her "medications." Disgraced police officer Jon Guti�rrez has a chance to salvage his career by convincing Antonia to return to work. The body of a teenage boy from a wealthy family is found exsanguinated and "anointed" with olive oil, and the daughter of one of the richest men in Spain has been kidnapped. A sinister mastermind is at work who makes impossible ransom demands--not the financial kind. Antonia's mind is "a jungle full of monkeys leaping at full speed from limb to limb," but she bonds with Jon, and they investigate. It is a suspenseful and terrifying case for both of them, not to mention the reader. A bit of Clarice Starling and a lot of Lisbeth Salander make Antonia a thoroughly compelling character, who will return in two more translations to complete G�mez-Jurado's trilogy, which is being adapted for streaming by Amazon.

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