What would spring be like without another Ruth Ware mystery?  I hope never to find out. My thanks go to Net Galley and Gallery Books for the review copy.  This book goes up for sale Tuesday, June 20, and those that love a fast-paced, high octane read should order a copy.

One of the finest things about Zero Days is the premise. Our protagonist is Jacintha “Jack” Cross, and she and her husband, Gabe, run a pen testing business. I had never heard of pen testers before; these are people that are hired by corporations to hack into their systems and then report their areas of vulnerability so that they can be corrected before unfriendly hackers find them. Jack is the physical penetrator, and so while Gabe is home worming his way into the client’s network, Jack is on site, physically breaking into the business’s building.

This reviewer has two immediate family members that are fairly high on the IT food chain, so I asked both of them whether this is a real thing; they assured me that it is, although they had never heard the abbreviation. Most penetration testers don’t physically breach the physical building; usually it’s a tech breach only.

On this occasion, Jack meets up with a security guard that doesn’t believe she’s there legitimately, and by the time she straightens things out and gets home, her husband is dead.

When I read my notes, I can find plenty to criticize. At the outset, as Jack is breaking into the site, she has her earbuds in and Gabe is talking to her, and there is some conversation about the sex they’re looking forward to after the job that I find jarring and out of place. Yes, the purpose is to let the reader know that their marriage is strong, but I would have preferred greater subtlety. Then the cops decide Jack is their number one suspect, and when I see that Jack is going to investigate in order to clear her own name and find Gabe’s killer, I actually groan, because this is such a tired, overused trope. And the vast majority of this novel is Jack being chased, Jack running, Jack hiding, Jack running some more.

However, when it’s time to read–and I have several books going at a time, some galleys, some not–I find myself reaching for this one every time. Ware’s pacing never flags, and there’s creativity in the choices Jack makes that are reminiscent of Thomas Perry’s legendary Jane Whitefield series, but with technology added. I love that it’s the woman in this pen business doing all of the physical work, and Jack is a genuine badass, which makes my feminist heart beat harder. She is injured badly in one escape, and I fret over her and even wonder how she’s carrying it off, given the severity, but Ware convinces me that Jack is propelled by adrenaline and a complete indifference to her own safety and health, now that Gabe is gone. There is a small twist thrown in at the end that I find annoyingly predictable, but it’s almost an afterthought, and so it doesn’t impact the main body of the story. And there are occasional brilliant, original bits of figurative language that I love.

In point of fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing Jack Cross again.

For those that love an adrenaline rush, this book is recommended.