Black Wolf: A Novel

by Juan Gómez-Jurado

Overview

International bestselling sensation Antonia Scott, along with Jon Gutierrez, return in the much anticipated sequel to Red Queen, now a top ten streaming series on Prime Video!

Antonia Scott has an unusually gifted mind, able to see what others miss, able to solve the crimes that baffle all others. The only thing she fears is herself.

Antonia is the lynchpin of the Red Queen project, created to work behind the scenes to solve the most devious and dangerous crimes. But she is unwilling to move past the last case, convinced it’s related to a personal tragedy, until a series of deadly events pulls her back in. In southern Spain, in the Costa del Sol, a key mafia figure is found brutally murdered in his villa, his pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, barely escapes an attempt to kill her in a shopping mall and is on the run. A shipping container from St. Petersburg arrives in port in Spain containing the corpses of nine woman, all who suffocated. Now Antonia, with the help of her helper and protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down this missing Lola. But they aren’t the only ones on Lola’s trail – a dangerous contract killer, known as the Black Wolf, is also on her trail. And Antonia Scott, still plagued by her personal demons, must outwit, out-maneuver, and, ultimately, face this terrible, mysterious rival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250372116
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/18/2025
Series:	Antonia Scott , #2
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	416,919
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

JUAN GOMEZ-JURADO (he/him) is a journalist and novelist, whose Antonia Scott trilogy has now sold more than two million copies in the original Spanish, is being published in seventeen countries, and is currently being adapted by Amazon in a streaming series expected to debut in 2023. He lives in Madrid, Spain.

Editorial Reviews

"Propulsive... 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." —Publishers Weekly

"The Antonia Scott series is hands-down the best suspense trilogy to come along since Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Nothing else even comes close. The third one needs to arrive soon—make it so." —BookPage

From the Publisher

01/29/2024

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.)

Publishers Weekly

2024-01-05
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.

Kirkus Reviews