Scorpion

A Novel

By: Christian Cantrell

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

An exceptional, fast-paced thriller featuring a tech-empowered assassin whose pattern and objective you’ve never seen before, chased by a heroine with tenacious grit.” (David Brin, author of The Postman and Existence)

As the world changes faster than humanity can adapt to it, a government insider chases a serial killer who makes her question what it means to be a hero in this electrifying novel from the author of Containment.

Quinn Mitchell is a nine-to-five spy - an intelligence analyst for the CIA during the day, and a suburban wife and mother on evenings and weekends. After her young daughter is killed in a tragic accident, sending her life into a tailspin, Quinn hopes to find a new start in her latest assignment: investigating a series of bizarre international assassinations whose victims have been found with numeric codes tattooed, burned, or carved into their flesh.

As Quinn follows the killer’s trail across the globe, always one body behind, she begins uncovering disturbing connections between the murders - and herself. Every lead she tracks down in pursuit of the assassin brings Quinn one step closer to the Epoch Index, a mysterious encrypted message discovered in the archives of the Large Hadron Collider. Its origins are unknown and decrypting it is beyond even the CIA. Yet nothing else can possibly link together a slew of unsolvable murders, an enigmatic and sophisticated serial killer who always seems to be three steps ahead, a quirky young physics prodigy whose knowledge extends well beyond her years, and, underlying everything, the inescapable tragedy of Quinn’s own past.

Discovering the meaning of the Epoch Index leads Quinn to a shocking twist that shatters everything she thought she knew about the past, the future, and the delicate balance of right and wrong that she must now fight to preserve.

©2021 Christian Cantrell (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Written with a unique blend of vim and wit, Scorpion is a cat-and-mouse, edge-of-your-seat, mind-blowing speculative techno thriller with a killer twist! Perfect for fans of Philip K. Dick and Richard K. Morgan.” (Diane Jeffrey, best-selling author of The Silent Friend)

“[Scorpion] takes place in an only slightly futuristic world that snaps and bristles with technological capabilities that may seem distant or improbable but which are in fact just around the corner.... There’s snappy dialogue, sharp observation, and compelling characters in Quinn, Ranveer, and Henrietta; the technology sings, the physics is plausibly presented, and the suggestion of time travel fascinates.... A fast, fun, and intelligent SF thriller.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“This stunning near-future thriller from Cantrell takes some truly breathtaking turns.... Cantrell’s drolly caustic prose encourages readers to care about the characters, even as the many surprises make it dangerous to get close to any one of them. The result is as entertaining as it is intellectually and ethically challenging.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

A true techno thriller

Coming into this with high expectations based on my love of the authors, previous work kingmaker, scorpion Hass to be one of the top techno thrillers written on the past decade.

I would simply describe it as:
Did you enjoy the general premise and concepts of the 2021 film Tenet but actually wanted a plot?
This is it, temporal pincer move included.

Also, one of the funniest chapters ever written about the idea’s surrounding establishing a micronation, laugh out loud, witty, phenomenal work.

P.S. excellent narration from Hillary Huber

A glimpse into the future

I found this book and the storyline to be highly entertaining and detailed down to the last dotted I and crossed t. I believe it is a glimpse into the technology of the future and would love to see a movie made from it. It can get long in the tooth at times and your mind drifts buy once you get to know the characters it brings you back by midway through a chapter. Of you are into espionage and futuristic tech this is the book for you.

great engaging story with twists

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Scorpion. characters we're interesting and relatable, story was pretty unique, and it didn't come together until the very end. I'm actually a little confused about motivations for what happened in the end so I'm going to re-read the last few chapters again.

as an engineer, it was also great to finally see a story that was accurate in all the real technology and engineering (excluding future stuff of course). the airport is an engineer so this wasn't a surprise, but it is very rare.

inconsistent main character

The main character was so weak and inconsistent and constantly blubbering that it was off-putting.

Excellent

So, I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I read and reviewed the first book I ever picked up by Christian Cantrell, Containment. But, I went back to see what my review looked like. I open it talking about being “compelled” to write a review – since this was before my blog and me reading and reviewing 150 books a year. So, for me at that time, it really stood out. Now, I mention this because when I saw that Cantrell had a new book, Scorpion, coming out soon – I had to have it.

I honestly bought this book without even reading the synopsis. I went into it blind because I knew how much I enjoyed Cantrell’s other work. I knew that it was going to have real or at least realistic science in it and I knew that it was going to knock my socks off. Thankfully, both of those assumptions were correct – Scorpion was full of realistic science fiction along with lots and lots of action.

The seeming premise of the story is about a killer who is able to murder his marks without being noticed. They are dying in reverse age order and they all have 4 digit numbers on them at the time of death. Seemingly bizarre and unconnected since none of them were related or even seemed to know each other. Now, that’s the “seeming” premise. There was SO much more to this story and once the curtain was pulled back at around 75% of the book I was already hooked just trying to figure out who the killer was – when I was even more enthralled. It’s not that the book took a 180 or anything once the curtain was pulled back, but it made the book even more interesting. I was already hooked but now you had me completely on the edge of my seat.

I was exhausted last night and I knew I had about 45 minutes left in Scorpion. Putting this book down was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I wanted to finish it, but I knew that I would enjoy it so much more today instead of listening when I was overtired. I’m glad that I did because the last 45 minutes not only cleaned things up but also put a lot of pieces into place for a potential other book in the series without leaving me with an intense cliffhanger. If Cantrell writes more – I’ll be happy, but if this is it. I’m just as pleased.

Overall, I obviously enjoyed the heck out of this book. Scorpion was a fun technothriller that really blew me away. I don’t have to say much about Hillary Huber because she’s one of the best in the audiobook game working today. She nails the performance and basically became Quinn in my eyes. I couldn’t ask for much more out of a narrator.