
Antonia Scott is the smartest person in the world. She’s a member of a special covert police unit designed to crack the most complex criminal cases. Her codename? Red Queen. But for the past three years, Antonia has been in a state of near-hibernation after an attack took away the one person she cared for most in the world…
The Red Queen Is Back in Action
With Red Queen, Juan Gómez-Jurado has broken through the nearly impenetrable barrier of international recognition after publishing numerous books in Spanish. Not an easy feat if you’re not writing in English. To pull it off, you need something truly extraordinary—something that grabs readers’ attention immediately.
And Antonia Scott is precisely that.
The superintelligent yet quirky and eccentric personality commands both your admiration and your sympathy, making her even easier to relate to. (Much like Lisbeth Salander, a.k.a. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.)
In a genre where the police bring in an external consultant to essentially do their job for them, it’s no easy feat to stand out. It takes a character of Patrick Jane’s caliber (The Mentalist) to make it work. Personality is the decisive factor—it’s what everything hinges on. When the character is compelling enough, readers or viewers are often willing to overlook the fact that the consultant is essentially just retracing the same steps the police would have taken without them.
But in Red Queen, that’s not the case at all. Juan Gómez-Jurado quickly and convincingly establishes that Antonia Scott is genuinely one of the smartest people on Earth.
I Can’t Handle This Tension!
Red Queen is, moreover, a fast-paced thriller where the intellectually demanding investigative work is frequently punctuated by tense action sequences, ranging from car chases to bomb explosions.
But Juan Gómez-Jurado employs additional tools to keep the tension—and your blood pressure—consistently high:
What do cops hate more than anything? When the guys in black suits swoop in from above, constantly meddling in their work and telling them what to do. Well, the Red Queen (and her loyal partner, Inspector Gutiérrez) operate undercover, with fake credentials and a reputation that’s—let’s just say—lower than dirt. Constant clashes with other law enforcement agencies? Absolutely guaranteed.
And then there’s this: if you’ve got an antisocial genius who’s perfect for the job—or rather, the only one fit for the job—what do you not do? Treat her like a supercomputer. You don’t start overclocking the processor to squeeze out an extra 2% performance and risk frying the whole system.
But let’s ask Mentor, the Red Queen’s boss, what he thinks:
– “What’s your take on this, dear sir?”
– “Uh, I’d say it’s worth a shot!”
Of course, we know full well that these things wouldn’t work in real life. But in the world of Red Queen, they absolutely do.
Inspector Jon Gutiérrez, Reporting for Duty!
When Jon Gutiérrez trudges up the stairs to Antonia Scott’s rooftop apartment in the very first chapter of Juan Gómez-Jurado’s book, panting heavily, you don’t yet realize that Red Queen’s eventual sidekick will almost instantly rise to co-lead status.
Thanks to the contradictory personality of the eccentric yet warm-hearted inspector, who is also open about his sexual orientation, Red Queen adopts a well-crafted tone of self-irony and playful banter. (Thankfully, it never sinks to the silliness of The Thursday Murder Club.)
You wouldn’t expect anything like this from the introverted Antonia Scott.
When Jon Gutiérrez’s character steps into the background for a while later in the book, you can’t help but notice how much his presence is missed… In short, Gómez-Jurado’s thriller doesn’t rely solely on its brilliantly unique protagonist—Inspector Gutiérrez is just as essential to its success.
Women on Top
Antonia Scott, the star of Red Queen, is exceptional in every sense. Beyond her unparalleled intellect, she’s also got a fierce willpower and an abundance of courage.
Gómez-Jurado, however, didn’t stop at creating just one exceptionally strong female character. His book, whose ruthless villains target the world of the upper crust (yet another ingredient for potential success), also puts Carla Ortiz, the daughter of one of the world’s wealthiest people, through significant trials.
So, if you’re a fan of strong female characters, this book gives you two for the price of one…
Serial Cruelties
Creating a diabolically cruel villain is relatively easy. Crafting one that’s genuinely memorable? That’s much harder. I won’t say Red Queen’s Ezekiel doesn’t meet the minimum standard for absolute madness, but based on the very first crime scene he left behind, he could have been capable of much more! Let’s cut him some slack, though. After all, activities like this consume a lot of energy and time, with relatively little payoff…
Moreover, Antonia Scott and Inspector Jon Gutiérrez’s first adrenaline-pumping, action-packed investigation leaves several loose ends, promising even more spine-chilling excitement to come. It also teases a shadowy, manipulative, devilishly cruel, and, quite possibly, truly memorable adversary lurking in the background.
Rating: 8.6/10
Red Queen (Antonia Scott #1) by Juan Gómez-Jurado
384 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2023 by Minotaur Books
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