Zero Days
“Zero Days is a fast-paced book in which nothing is as it seems, and you never know who to trust.”
As her husband, Gabe, watches from his computer at home, Jacintha Cross breaks into a company’s security system. It’s part of her job as partner in Crossways Security, the London based company she and her husband own and operate. She does the physical labor—sneaking into buildings, her timing needing to be perfect, so she doesn’t get caught. Always at risk of being apprehended if not worse, Jacintha seems to thrive on the tension and derring-do needed to make the job work. Overcoming the odds in her latest infiltration attempt which required climbing above the ceiling and then dropping down into a computer room, she manages to enter the last flash drive when she notices that the company’s security is methodically searching for her room by room.
Busted, she’s confronted with the police and an ex-lover who taunts her with references to their past relationship and his emotional control over her. When finally released she heads home, looking forward to chilling out with Gabe after the grueling experience.
Only Jacintha’s troubles, which looked bad about her attempt to get away with sabotaging their client’s systems, turns even worse. Gabe is dead, his throat slit, and Jacinta at first doesn’t call the police. When she does and the investigation progress, it’s discovered that Gabe had recently taken out a million-pound life insurance policy with Jacinta the beneficiary.
Like horror movies in which people insist upon going into the basement even when there’s a knife wielding fiend on the loose, the same often goes with mystery and suspense novels. Jacintha is no exception. She has information that might help her avoid being ensnarled as the most likely suspect but she decides to prove herself innocent instead of going to the police—though it doesn’t take her long to acknowledge that might not be the best plan.
“I could have stayed I could have shown the police that e-mail and said look I didn't set this up, something is wrong, someone is framing me for Gabe’s death because surely there would have been some way of tracing that e-mail back to the source?” she thinks. “Someone had filled out that form, had sent it off, had processed the payment period and that someone had to be the person who had killed Gabe—didn't they?”
Written by Ruth Ware, author of the New York Times bestsellers The It Girl and The Woman in Cabin 10, Zero Days is a fast-paced book in which nothing is as it seems, and you never know who to trust.