Reading ‘Red Queen’ is like strapping yourself in to one of those fairground rides that’s going to drop you from a great height at high speed, twist you upside down and sideways, take your breath away and keep you constantly off balance. All you can do is grab hold and enjoy the ride.

I gave myself up to the book, letting it sweep me along and I had a great time.

Yes, the premise of the book is a bit of a stretch: a woman with an unusual mind that has been enhanced by training that seems more like torture so that she never forgets anything and can see patterns in data that are invisible to others, so many patterns that she has to use a drug to slow her mind and prevent her from drowning in stimulus, partnered with a Basque detective who has been suspended for planting evidence to convict a drug dealer, both of them working for a secretive European law enforcement agency that stays always in the background.

The plot is also elaborate: staged bodies, meticulously planned abductions, bizarre ransom demands, obscure motives and layer upon layer of deception.

But, if you take it on its own terms, what you get is a fast-paced, high-tension, stay-up-late-to-see-what-happens thriller with unique, engaging, larger-than-life characters with complex backstories.

I enjoyed the Spanish flavour of ‘Red Queen’. It was refreshing not to be in the USA or the UK but to be dealing with people from a different culture and history. Much is the same, making it accessible and easy to read, but it’s what is different that adds the spice: the machismo of the SWAT team, the strange history of the underground police squads developed under Franco, the regional rivalries and the distinctive architecture of the cities.

The book also gave an insight into the strange world of the extremely rich and showed just how different they are. We saw the families of the abducted, one a generations-old banking family, one a self-made billionaire. We also saw, Antonia Scott’s own family. Her estranged father is the UK Ambassador and he wields power with an absolute sense of entitlement.

By the end of the book, I felt that I’d been dragged through a maze at high speed, that my curiosity had been baited and then sated and that I’d met some memorable people. Most of all, I felt that I immediately needed more of Antonia Scott and her partner.

Sadly, I’ll have to wait. Although the other two Antonia Scott books, ‘Black Wolf’ and ‘White King’ have been available in Spanish since 2020, the English language version of ‘Black Wolf’ won’t be available until March 2024. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy.

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