Red Queen

Set in contemporary Madrid, this novel follows two unlikely partners drawn into a covert investigation targeting a serial kidnapper who preys on the children of Spain's wealthiest families.

Antonia Scott is a reclusive woman living in a nearly empty loft in Madrid's Lavapiés district, where she contemplates suicide for three minutes each day as a ritual to maintain her sanity. Her husband Marcos, a sculptor, has been in a coma for three years after being shot, and Antonia blames herself. She spends her nights in his hospital room and her days in isolation, her only regular contact being video calls with her 93-year-old grandmother in England.

Her solitude breaks when Jon Gutiérrez, a police inspector from Bilbao, arrives at her door. Jon has been suspended and faces criminal charges after planting heroin in a pimp's car to protect a young sex worker. A mysterious figure calling himself Mentor offered Jon a deal: Convince Antonia to get into a car, and Jon's legal troubles will vanish. Antonia initially dismisses Jon, but her grandmother persuades her to reconsider. She catches up with Jon and agrees to go with him for one night.

Jon drives Antonia to La Finca, an ultra-exclusive gated community near Madrid. Inside a mansion, the air conditioning preserves a crime scene: A teenager sits bolt upright on a sofa, holding a glass filled with his own blood, his body drained through a tube in his carotid artery, his head anointed with oil. Antonia identifies the staging as a reference to Psalm 23. The victim is Álvaro Trueba, son of Laura Trueba, chair of Europe's largest bank. Mentor insists the case remain secret.

Mentor explains the Red Queen project to Jon: A covert European initiative in which each nation operates a small unit to handle cases too sensitive for ordinary police. Each unit has a Mentor, a shield bearer, and a Red Queen, an analyst with extraordinary cognitive abilities. In flashback, Mentor recalls discovering Antonia during testing as the only candidate out of hundreds to solve an impossible scenario, achieving a score predicted for one in seven million people. To amplify her abilities, she underwent a neurochemical procedure that permanently modified her brain chemistry; she takes red capsules to manage the overwhelming sensory input.

In an intercut storyline, Carla Ortiz, heiress to the world's richest man, travels by car to Madrid with her chauffeur Carmelo Novoa. Near an equestrian center, a man in a high-visibility jacket redirects their vehicle with fake detour signs. He stabs Carmelo and captures Carla. Her father, Ramón Ortiz, receives a call from the kidnapper, who identifies himself as Ezekiel.

Antonia recognizes the connection to Carla's kidnapping and agrees to continue the case. She and Jon observe the investigation led by Captain José Luis Parra of the National Police's Abduction and Extortion Unit (AEU), during which Ramón Ortiz claims Ezekiel made no demands, though Jon and Antonia detect he is lying. Using Carla's iCloud password, Antonia tracks the phone to the equestrian center, where they find Carmelo's body. The Porsche used to transport Carla suddenly charges at them; a high-speed chase follows, ending when the Audi crashes through a barrier. Both survive, and Jon's photos capture a tattoo on Ezekiel's forearm.

Parra bans them from the Ortiz case, so Mentor redirects them to the Trueba murder. In alternating chapters, Carla endures captivity in a pitch-black cell, hearing a woman named Sandra through the wall who claims to be another captive. Sandra tells Carla a boy was in her cell before her and screamed before going silent.

Antonia and Jon bribe La Finca security guards to review camera footage, identifying a taxi with fake plates that entered the development the night the body was deposited. The plates trace to a young woman's car, revealing Ezekiel has an accomplice. Visiting Laura Trueba, Antonia learns Ezekiel quoted the Bible and made an unacceptable demand. They deduce his motive is not ransom but forced public confession: He demands powerful parents acknowledge their sins, and when they refuse, their children die.

A tattoo artist identifies the partial tattoo as belonging to members of the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) unit of Spain's Subterranean Police, a force specializing in tunnels and underground infrastructure. Jon's contacts confirm that one NBC officer, Nicolás Fajardo, supposedly died in a tunnel explosion after his daughter's apparent death in a car crash. Antonia calls Parra to share this lead, but he dismisses her, saying his team has already identified Fajardo and is about to raid his apartment.

Antonia realizes the fake license plates came from the car in which Fajardo's daughter supposedly died, meaning the daughter also faked her death. A security guard recalls the taxi driver was a woman. Antonia tries to warn Parra the raid is a trap, but he has turned off his phone. Two chlorine bombs concealed in the apartment detonate when the AEU team enters, killing five officers. Parra survives by dragging himself and a wounded colleague up the stairs.

After Bruno Lejarreta, a journalist from Bilbao who holds a grudge against Jon, publishes the kidnapping story, Mentor orders Antonia off the case. Sandra Fajardo, Nicolás's daughter, then kidnaps Antonia's four-year-old son Jorge from his school. Sandra calls and reveals herself as the true Ezekiel, giving Antonia an impossible choice: Do nothing for 12 hours and Jorge will be released, or try to find them and he dies. Sandra hints that a shadowy figure orchestrated everything from behind the scenes.

Antonia refuses to wait. She deduces from a genetic discrepancy that the murdered boy was not Álvaro Trueba but Jaime Vidal, the housekeeper's son, grabbed by mistake. She blackmails Laura Trueba with this knowledge to obtain a gun. Using Fajardo's personnel file, the location of his faked death, and a rumbling consistent with subway trains heard during Sandra's call, Antonia identifies the hideout: Goya 2, an abandoned ghost subway station beneath Madrid accessible through century-old Arab water tunnels called qanats.

Antonia descends underground while Jon enters from the subway side, both navigating booby traps. In the ghost station, Antonia lures Sandra away with a decoy while Jon reaches the back office, where Fajardo is strangling Carla beside the bound Jorge. Jon orders Fajardo to stop at gunpoint, but Sandra returns and shoots Jon twice in the back. His bulletproof vest saves him, but he goes down. Carla, who spent her captivity scraping wall tiles into sharp tools, stabs Fajardo in the carotid, killing him.

Sandra grabs Jorge and flees into the tunnel. Antonia pursues in the dark, instructing Jorge to drop flat when she yells "Duck!" Both women fire simultaneously. Antonia's bullet hits Sandra, who falls backward and triggers an explosion that buries her under rubble. Antonia embraces her son and kisses his forehead for the first time in three years.

Jon helps Carla to the surface, where her father waits alongside press cameras. Carla has not yet decided what to say to the father who chose his empire over her life. In the epilogue, forensic analysis reveals that the body in Sandra Fajardo's grave truly belongs to Sandra, meaning the woman Antonia shot is someone else entirely. Antonia shows Jon a case file on a contract killer known as Mr. White, the man who shot Marcos and who, Sandra's words confirmed, orchestrated everything. Antonia asks Jon to help her catch him, and Jon agrees to become her permanent partner.