Name: Scorpion
ISBN: 9780241371336

Christian Cantrell

I Am Pilgrim meets Minority Report - a gripping international cat-and-mouse thriller with an ending you won't see coming Around the world, people have been murdered. The victims fit no profile, the circumstances vary wildly, but one thing links them all- in every case the victim is branded with a number. With police around the globe floundering, CIA Analyst Quinn Mitchell is called in to investigate. No-one is better than Quinn at finding patterns, and it's not long before she's on the killer's tail. As she races against time to find out who the killer is, she is prepared to catch this ice-hearted assassin with limitless resources. What she isn't prepared for is the person pulling the strings...

Scorpion

"As the world changes faster than humanity can adapt to it, a government insider chases a serial killer who makes her question what it means to be a hero in this electrifying novel from the author of Containment. With the world bordering on unprecedented technological change, Quinn Mitchell is an old-school, nine-to-five spy--an intelligence analyst for the CIA during the day, and a suburban wife and mother on evenings and weekends. After struggling with a personal tragedy, Quinn hopes to find redemption in her newest assignment: a series of bizarre, international assassinations where victims are found with numeric codes tattooed, burned, or carved into their flesh. As Quinn follows the killer's trail around the globe, always one body behind, she begins uncovering disturbing connections between the murders--and herself. Finding the killer will hinge on Quinn's ability to grapple with the Epoch Index, a massive database that can reveal almost anything about anyone--past, present or future--and which leads her to a shocking twist that makes her question everything she thought she knew. Christian Cantrell's inventive and exciting fiction explores unfamiliar worlds and alternative futures. A born prototyper, he has also written extensively on the evolution and future of technology, and he brings the full range of his scientific expertise to this captivating speculative thriller"--

A Novel

Micchi von Cross

I was given advance copy of this book via Netgalley and Penguin Random House.

This was an...interesting read. I am a fan of weird sci-fi and time travel shenanigans, and in that respect, I did enjoy the book. But a lot felt...stilted and odd. I couldn't connect with the protagonist Quinn Mitchell at all, on any level. As an AFAB person who has no desire for children, her driving force in life being "being a mother" felt foreign to me. 

The first two-thirds of this book were a mildly interesting, if pretty cliche near-future crime thriller. The last third veered off the rails. Characterizations became increasingly less coherent. Resolving plot threads felt rushed and unexplained. I felt like I fell into a fever dream at some point, and not in the way I enjoy. 

I did enjoy the diversity throughout the book, and felt like that helped the world feel more rich and interesting.

Overall, I feel like this book wanted to do a lot, but ultimately fell short.

Jolie

When I read the blurb for Scorpion, I was intrigued and a little wary—intrigued because I am a massive sucker for a mystery that goes international. Wary because I have read technothrillers before, and they were not my cup of tea. But, since I read anything that comes across my desk (or email in this case), I decided to take a chance on it. It was a chance that fell flat.

Scorpion is the story about a CIA analyst, Quinn, who is called in to help with a strange case. There have been 22 people killed, all with different numbers tattooed somewhere on their bodies. Who is this serial killer, who controls him, and why do they want those people dead? The answers might be the biggest surprise of all.

Scorpion started as a fast-paced book. The storyline zipped right along until it hit the middle of the book. Then the storyline came almost to a standstill, which surprised me. Unfortunately, it did take some time for the author to get the story going again.

Scorpion’s storyline was exciting at first. It was easy to follow, focusing on Quinn and Ranveer during the first half of the book. Then the author introduced Henrietta, who I thought would be a secondary character and the storyline took on an unfortunate (and weird) turn. After that, I almost couldn’t follow the storyline because of everything that was going on. It was too much. If the author had just kept the storyline focused on Quinn and Ranveer, I would have been OK with it and enjoyed the book more.

I wasn’t sure if I liked Quinn. I did have sympathy for her, and when her backstory was revealed, my heart broke. But, she came across as flaky. A former spy, you would have thought that she would have had at least some experience with interviews. But she didn’t and cried during an interview. I mean, seriously? Who does that?

There is a lot of technical jargon that did bog down the storyline. I found myself googling terms a lot. Again, it didn’t help with the book’s flow and made me grumpy while reading it.

The end of the book was a giant cluster. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening (and I read the last eight chapters twice). Add in everything that was happening with Henrietta, and I was like, “What. The. Heck. Is. Going. On“. Like I mentioned above, it was almost too much.

I did like the first half of Scorpion. It was a good read with the right amount of mystery and thriller. But the book went downhill in the second half, and I didn’t enjoy it.

I am on the fence if I would recommend Scorpion. There is no sex. There is violence, sometimes graphic. There is one troubling scene of a baby being murdered. There is mental illness with the character going off her meds.

Scorpion

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