Black wolf /

The propulsive second volume of Gómez-Jurado's trilogy featuring Antonia Scott (after Red Queen) sends the brilliant investigator on a high-stakes mission to take down a Russian crime syndicate. Scott is a key player in the Red Queen project, a covert European law enforcement initiative tasked with bringing to justice serial killers, terrorists, and "particularly elusive violent criminals." Red Queen's controller, Mentor, has sent Scott and Basque police inspector Jon Gutiérrez to find Lola Moreno, the widow of Yuri Voronin, who's just been gunned down in his home in Spain. Voronin was the treasurer of Russia's vicious Orlov Gang, and Mentor hopes that intel from Moreno about her husband's death might help dismantle the syndicate. With Moreno on the run after narrowly evading a hit man herself, and the legendary Russian assassin known as Black Wolf hot on their heels, Scott and Gutiérrez embark on a blood-spattered quest to make things right. Gómez-Jurado continues to skillfully render the inner workings of Scott's hyperactive mind, and the action in this installment is even more relentless than the series opener. Admirers of Stieg Larsson's Millennium novels will eat this up. (Mar.)

The middle entry in a trilogy of thrillers set in Spain, following Red Queen (2023). In Madrid, Antonia Scott and her partner, Jon Gutiérrez, are key players in the EU's Red Queen project, designed to root out the very worst criminals. They pull a decomposed body from the banks of the Manzanares river. Then white-slave trafficker Yuri Voronin is murdered by the Russian mafia, and his pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, goes on the run. The chapters focusing on Lola's viewpoint tend to begin with a once-upon-a-time quality: "There was once a little girl who grew up in a sad, loveless home where the food tasted of ashes and the future was black." It had taken marriage to a Russian mobster to find wealth and happiness--until death did them part, anyway. Aslan Orlov, aka the Beast, wants to find and kill Lola, so he calls in "Chernaya Volchista," the Black Wolf. (Hmm. Seems like if Spain wants big-league sleaze, they have to import it.) Scott and Gutiérrez want her, too, because "everything centers on finding Lola Moreno." The bad guys are suitably frightening, and Scott and Gutiérrez are sympathetic protagonists. He's smart, strong, brave, and gay. She's the most intelligent person on the planet, and one of the quirkier protagonists in crime fiction. She's afraid of almost nothing, hates to be touched, and relaxes for three minutes a day by imagining how she could kill herself. As with Red Queen, the action is intense, with blood flowing and dead bodies galore: Police find eight dead women who'd been locked in a shipping container--perhaps they once had been beautiful, but you couldn't tell anymore. Just when it looks like all is done and dusted, something happens that screams for a sequel. One of several great lines: "a two-seater couch so close to the TV you could change channels with your eyelashes." Thriller aficionados will enjoy this one. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.