Black Wolf - Bk2 - Juan Gomez-Jurado

The sequel to Juan Gomez-Jurado's number one international best seller Red Queen, featuring Antonia Scott, the most compelling and original detective since Lisbeth Salander. 

Antonia Scott is not afraid of anything.  Only herself.  But there is someone more dangerous than her.  Someone who could beat her.  The black wolf is getting closer.  And Antonia, for the first time, is scared.

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 women, all of whom suffocated.  Now Antonia, with the help of her helper and protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down the 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 the hunt.  And Antonia Scott, still plagued by her personal demons, must outwit, out-manoeuvre, and, ultimately, face this terrible, mysterious rival.

Red Queen is one of the most extravagantly entertaining novels I've ever read.  Sprinting from spectacular surprise to even-more-spectacular surprise; whirling from one crisply textured character to the next . . . it's an electrifying serial-killer thriller, a fiendishly clever puzzle mystery, and a sensitive portrait of a fascinating young woman.  Red Queen tops even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as a thinking reader's thriller, and Antonia Scott is like a more sympathetic Lisbeth Salander.  I loved every word -- A. J. Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window