The Book:
Zero Days by Ruth Ware
Published June 20, 2023 by Gallery/Scout Press
Date read: April 10, 2023
The Characters:
Jack Cross
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
The New York Times bestselling “new Agatha Christie” (Air Mail) Ruth Ware returns with this adrenaline-fueled thriller that combines Mr. and Mrs. Smith with The Fugitive about a woman in a race against time to clear her name and find her husband’s murderer.
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 from an author whose “propulsive prose keeps readers on the hook and refuses to let anyone off until all has been revealed” (Shelf Awareness).
How did Zero Days end?
The Reveal:
Cole was obviously the one tipping the police off to Jack’s location, pretending to be Helen contacting her on Signal to get more information from her. Unfortunately this reveal didn’t surprise me at all, since the second Jack went to Cole for help I thought “I bet it was him”. Cole wasn’t the one who killed Gabe, but he was responsible for his death.
Cole’s cybersecurity company was selling its users’ data on the black market, including home security cameras and parental monitoring apps. As a hacktivist, Gabe kept track of holes in the cybersecurity of even companies he wasn’t hired by, and would usually alert them to the weak point. He found this out about Cole in a routine check of Cole’s security. When he told Cole, the people buying the information found out and killed Gabe. Cole was worried they’d come for him and Jack next, so he claimed he was turning Jack in to the police to protect her.
The Ending:
Jack figured all this out eventually by paying someone to clone Gabe’s phone so she could log into his accounts and see his notes to himself. To expose Cole, she broke into his house in the middle of the night and streamed her confrontation to all of Gabe’s hacktivist followers. Cole was arrested, but killed himself in prison before his trial.
Jack and Habiba Malik (the detective) became friends.
Jack was pregnant with Gabe’s baby daughter.
The Review:
Thank you to @simonandschuster @bookclubfavorites for this gifted copy!
I always look forward to a new Ruth Ware book! Zero Days was quite different from most of her previous titles, which usually are atmospheric locked-room psychological thrillers. Zero Days takes on more of a fugitive trope, which Jack finds herself the primary suspect in her husband’s murder.
I loved Jack as the main character. She was a resourceful badass, able to get out of seemingly any tricky situation, and I couldn’t wait to see what escape she’d find next. It was a lot fo fun to follow her thought process through the book.
Is it possible to be disappointed by a reveal but love the ending? No spoilers here, but that’s how I feel (I’ll add a little more about those thoughts on my blog).
If you’re looking for the twisty locked room thrillers that Ware is known for, Zero Days isn’t that. Despite being a departure from her usual tropes I really enjoyed the story. Fans of action movies will love this fast-paced, high-tension read!
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