Wolfe
has given us a great legal thriller with a twist. It took me a while
to get into the novel but by midway, I was hooked.
Synopsis:
Georgia
Griffin has just arrived in Silicon Valley from Piney, Arkansas in a
battered car with bald tires. She desperately needs to keep her new
job as a paralegal for Lumina Software so she can rescue her younger
sister from the totally unsuitable situation back home. She spends
her first weeks living in her car, saving money for an apartment. She
realizes before long that there is something seriously wrong with her new company. Incompetence has paralyzed leadership. Self serving
employees have a death grip on the business. She had promised herself
she would not follow in her father's con artist footsteps. But then
an opportunity presents itself and she decides to use her father's
training to clean up the company. Soon she has become a masterful con
artist, continuing in her attempts to save the software company. She
stumbles across a secret that might prove deadly. It might also be
the answer to all of Lumina's problems. Is she willing to take the
risk?
My
review:
Wolfe
has crafted a very interesting character in Georgia. She's got a good
heart and wants to really set things right in the software company.
How she goes about it is innovative. She has learned well from her
father and can spot the mark and set up the con. Her form of the con
is to see an incompetent person leave the company. This is one of
those times when I wonder if the end justifies the means. But I
enjoyed learning about how Georgia would create the con, observing
the personality of the person and finding their weak spot and then
pouncing.
Additional
characters in the novel reveal the atmosphere in the company. Wolfe
has done a great job of creating the incompetent bully, the aspiring
“yes” person, the arrogant CEO, and more. I learned much about
how leadership in such a company might function, especially the
inter-departmental jealousy.
The
plot was well crafted too. It took me a while to get into the action.
Georgia methodically pursues her cleansing work and I thought some of
it a bit repetitive. The last quarter of the book made all the rest
worth while. At the end we understand what was really going on in the
software company. What a revelation of what powerful men can do. But
they hadn't counted on Georgia!
I
recommend this novel to those who enjoy a legal novel with a serious
twist. Georgia is a crafty woman who combines her legal knowledge and
her ability to create the perfect con with her passion to save
Lumina. A con artist with a heart. An unusual character in an engaging plot made for good reading.
You can read an excerpt here.
I am taking part in a blog tour of this book. Click here to view the 'Escape Velocity by Susan Wolfe' Tour Participants.
My rating: 4/5 stars.
Susan
Wolfe is a lawyer with a B.A. From the University of Chicago and a
law degree from Stanford University. After four years of practicing
law full time, she bailed out and wrote the best-selling novel, The
Last Billable Hour, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.
She returned to law for another sixteen years, first as a criminal
defense attorney and then as an in-house lawyer for Silicon Valley
high-tech companies. She and her husband live in Palo Alto,
California. You can find out more at her website or follow her on
Twitter and Facebook.Book Details:
Genre: Thriller / Suspense
Published by: Steelkilt Press
Publication Date: October 4th 2016
Number of Pages: 432
ISBN: 0997211717 (ISBN13: 9780997211719)
Purchase Links: Amazon , Barnes & Noble , & Goodreads
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