Opinions of a Wolf

A new widow puts her professional penetration testing skills to work to discover who really killed her husband when she realizes she’s being framed for the crime.

Summary:
Hired by companies to break into buildings and hack security systems, Jack and her husband, Gabe, are the best penetration specialists in the business. But after a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, Jack arrives home to find her husband dead. To add to her horror, the police are closing in on their suspect—her.

Suddenly on the run and quickly running out of options, Jack must decide who she can trust as she circles closer to the real killer in this unputdownable and heart-pounding mystery.

Review:
Ruth Ware, often called the modern day Agatha Christie, drops a new thriller just in time for summer. This one features the fascinating world of penetration testers. What is a penetration tester, you ask? Someone companies hire to test their security. You may have heard of an “ethical hacker.” This is the same thing. Although, in the case of the book, the testing of security systems includes their physical systems. The title even alludes to a cybersecurity thing.

Jack, a talented reformed pickpocket, does the physical security testing, and Gabe, her husband, does the ethical hacking. The book opens with them working on a job, which provides delightful action sequences before the inciting incident of his murder. When she comes home and finds him dead, she gets sucked into a wave of grief that makes her oblivious to the warning signs she’s being framed. These are clear to the reader, and to her sister as well, which was a nice touch. Soon, Jack is on the run, with the dual goal of clearing her name and identifying her husband’s killer to bring him/them to justice.

The pacing of this thriller is solid. I was engrossed and wanted to find out what happened. Making Jack a penetration tester gives valid reasons for her skills at evading the police while also investigating the murder. She’s also easy to like and root for. The scenes of her evading the pervasive panopticon in London reminded me of a favorite book of mine, The Traveler (review). Those were among my favorite.

Two plot choices annoyed me. They’re spoilers, so consider yourself warned.

Gabe’s best friend kissing Jack felt out of character for both of them. I think it was supposed to be a clue to the reader not to trust him, but I already didn’t trust him. It was obvious from Jack saying that her sister didn’t use emojis like that on the phone that he set up for the two of them that this meant it was him on the phone. It was unnecessary and made it difficult for me to get over and like Jack again. I know sometimes grieving widows reach out in this way, and it’s not my place to judge, but it felt like a plot device more than a character choice. The other thing I disliked was that Jack is surprise pregnant at the end. Jack was suicidally depressed before she found out she was pregnant as she felt totally alone without her husband. (Even though her sister was very much involved the whole time, even getting arrested to help her.) In any case, the pregnancy being what it takes to snap Jack out of depression because now she has someone to live for really rubbed me the wrong way. Why couldn’t Jack have figured out that she should live and live well because that’s what we’re meant to do to the best of our abilities? Also, children don’t replace the spouse who passed away. That person is still gone. I get it that people feel like a legacy lives on in children, but to just snap out of suicidally depressed grief over a pregnancy doesn’t mean she properly processed her grief in any way, shape, or form. She’s now just living for the child in the way that she, apparently, was just living for Gabe before.

Overall, this is a fun, quick thriller perfect for a summer read.

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4 out of 5 stars

Length: 368 pages – average but on the longer side

Source: NetGalley

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