Scorpion by Christian Cantrell

 

Scorpion by Christian Cantrell.

Published in paperback 14th April 2022 by Penguin Michael Joseph.

From the cover of the book:

All over the world, random people are being brutally assassinated.

Each death is unique, but they all have one thing in common: four numbers branded or carved into the victims' flesh.

What does it mean?

For the brilliant and haunted CIA analyst Quinn Mitchell, it means leaving a safe and predictable desk job as she tries to track down a global serial killer.

What she doesn't know is that nothing about this mission - her handlers, the intelligence, even the laws of cause and effect - can be trusted.

And her target has saved his most shocking murder for last . . .

***********

In a near future, CIA analyst Quinn Mitchell has been preoccupied for the last few years with a project to prevent nuclear terrorism, following a horrific attack in Seoul. Now this project is coming to an end, hailed as a complete success by the intelligence services, Quinn finds her skills are required for quite a different sort of task.

A mysterious assassin has been killing targets all over the world, and branding them with four digit numbers. The targets seem to have been chosen at random, the methods used to execute them are wildly different, and the victims are getting younger each time. Quinn is not sure that this is really a job for her, given that she is not qualified as a field agent, but when a child is the latest victim of this unknown serial killer, the loss of her own daughter fortifies her need to track down whoever is responsible for these deaths and put a stop to their killing spree.

But Quinn doesn't know that there is something much wider going on here. Something that defies the laws of space and time, and is tied up with a hush-hush scheme of those at the very heart of the organisation she works for. The fate of millions lies in the balance and Quinn's life will never be the same again...

Scorpion is a beautifully conceived high-concept thriller that combines a serial killer mystery with elements of very clever science fiction themes around time travel, artificial intelligence and smart technology.

Cantrell draws you in with an enigmatic clue that appears in the most unlikely of places; seduces you with a compelling, but seemingly unrelated search for a serial killer; and then completely floors you with an about turn of the most entertaining kind, that blossoms into full-on sci-fi territory up there with the best writers of the genre... and I loved every fast-paced, bamboozling moment.

Quinn is an unusual protagonist, who is very relatable given her difficult background. I really enjoyed how she finds a way to channel her determination, and to employ her analytical skills to not only get the job done, but do it with style. I liked her from the word go, and thoroughly enjoyed how her character develops over the course of a story that throws everything at her in the way of mental, physical and emotional challenges.

Intriguingly, this is a book that is ideally suited as an introduction to the world of the sci-fi thriller for those who don't normally see themselves as readers of this genre, while impressively still containing everything that fans of a darned good science fiction yarn know and love, which is a very difficult thing to pull off. I take my hat off to Christian Cantrell for doing this so well. 

I cannot remember the last time I read a science fiction thriller of this kind that I found so delectably intricate, intelligent, full of adventure, and rammed with murderous machinations, while still maintaining pace as it twists and transforms its nature as the story unfolds. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole shebang, and cannot wait to read Cantrell's previous books.

Highly recommended for fans of the excellent scf-fi thrillers written by Michael Crichton and Blake Crouch.

Scorpion is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Christian Cantrell is a software engineer living outside of Washington, D.C. His self-published fiction has sold more than a quarter of a million copies, and three of his stories have been optioned for film or TV. Beyond his writing, he leads a team of designers and engineers who prototype the future of creativity as Adobe.