Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "calli-chase"

Spin by Patricia Cornwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Captain Calli Chase returns in the second in Patricia Cornwell’s space-science thriller series.

After averting disaster following a NASA rocket launch gone wrong, Calli is finally returning home when she is diverted to an isolated location and finds herself targeted by an assassin. Coming face to face with her twin sister Carme, Calli is about to discover that they have unknowingly been part of a top-secret programme that is now in jeopardy.

While adjusting to newfound technological advancements, Calli finds herself both pursued by and in pursuit of a dangerous and powerful adversary, who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. Calli and everyone she knows are in danger – yet, she fears she knows too little to be able to prevent personal and potentially international catastrophe.

As the true extent if their foe’s scheme becomes clear, Calli discovers she may have to undertake her own perilous mission in order to prevent a terror event with ramifications for the entire planet and beyond it.

Picking up in the immediate aftermath of the events of ‘Quantum’, ‘Spin’ continues the story of NASA cybercrime investigator and Space Force pilot Captain Calli Chase, who faces personal demons and family skeletons while unearthing a criminal conspiracy on a political scale. Calli is highly skilled and knowledgeable, as one would expect in her field of expertise, and her work is both her life and her passion. As with the first novel in the series, the story is told from her perspective, the reader plugged into her internal monologue, experiencing her thoughts and feelings as she blindly navigates a path others have chosen, kept largely in the dark by those around her, including those whom she trusts.

Cornwell brings her forensic attention to detail to this series, which is impeccably researched, including detailed insights into procedures and technology (some of which we hope is entirely fictional and/or firmly rooted in the research phase of such a project). Cornwell’s fascination with technology has been evident throughout her Scarpetta series – in recent novels, technological advancements having taken centre-stage alongside the detailed forensics and procedural details. The Calli Chase series feels like the natural evolution of Cornwell’s passion and research.

This is on some levels a crime thriller, on others a political thriller, with elements of sci-fi at its core. The beauty of the advanced technology of sci-fi is how it expands on concepts which may or may not be based in reality, while being highly sought after by governments and large corporations, either to further human civilisation and/or the planet, or for pure financial gain. The Machiavellian schemes and aspirations of the central villains can become chillingly realistic, psychologically if not always technologically. Cornwell plays with those concepts in this novel, crafting realistic scenarios playing alongside the sci-fi elements to create a thriller that may be more plausible than we care to be comfortable with.

Culminating in an intense launch into space, we are left with many answers to questions raised throughout both ‘Quantum’ and ‘Spin’, but, with the conspiracy at play seemingly far from resolution and justice not yet done, left hanging as if in the vacuum of space for more to come.

While a third novel has not yet been confirmed, the narrative feels as if it will run to at least a trilogy. In the meantime, we have the highly anticipated return of Kay Scarpetta to look forward to in ‘Autopsy’ – which, as well as a return to the sharp-edged forensics, promises more crime and intrigue in space.



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