Fugitive meets Mr and Mrs Smith — that's the logline of the pacey chase-mystery from Ruth Ware. Jack (Jacinda) is part of a Mr and Mrs Smith style set-up. She and her husband (Gabe) test the security of companies and report back on the bugs; she is the feet on the ground who breaks into buildings and he is the man on the computer hacking into the systems. After an operation, Jack returns home to find Gabe murdered with his throat cut. She calls the police and while being questioned, she realises she is the main suspect. It doesn't help that a million-pound life insurance kicks in with Gabe's death and she is the beneficiary. The rest of Zero Days (Gallery/Scout Press; 368 pages; `2,251) is her trying to figure out who initiated the insurance, who is trying to frame her and why Gabe had to die. The action is sharp and pacey, aided by the countdown to zero day. Ware's previous books were in the realm of psychological thrillers. In Zero Days, she retains that breathless and panicked interiority of the main character and melds it with an adventure story. Jack scarpers to lonely shacks on beaches and highway overpasses with the police on her heels, a nasty ex-boyfriend policeman, and has to rely on her family, Gabe's close friend and the kindness of strangers to unravel the whodunnit, which frankly didn't come as a surprise. I would've mentioned a third movie here but that would give the game away. Having read this after Forrester's book, it struck me as ironic that the 21st-century Jack behaves like an emotional and frazzled woman on the run, while the 19th century Miss Gladden of The Female Detective displays a cool and rational mind. Most of the telling in the book is firmly in the psychological suspense mode where we are privy to long stretches of Jack's high anxiety and panicked thoughts. Fans of Ruth Ware will like this one.

SA Cosby

An Anatomy of the Mystery

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