"While she may be capable of functioning several levels into the future, her mind is no crystal ball. She may have the ability to visualize dozens of disparate pieces of information simultaneously, but her brain doesn’t work like in those movies where you see a whole string of letters superimposed on the face of the protagonist as they’re thinking.
Antonia Scott’s mind is more like a jungle, a jungle full of monkeys leaping at top speed from vine to vine, carrying things. Many monkeys and many things, swinging past one another in midair, baring their fangs.
Today, the monkeys are carrying dreadful things, and Antonia is afraid."

"Antonia is afraid of almost nothing, apart from herself. Afraid of life, maybe. After all, she relaxes by imagining for three minutes every day how she could kill herself."

The Black Wolf is the second in Juan Gómez-Jurado’s Antonia Scott series. If you have not read the first, Red Queen, I would take a break, read that one, then come back. Also, if you have not read the first book in the series, there are some items in this review that might be spoilerish for you. Caveat lector.

Red Queen is a super-secret international anti-crime organization. They specialize in finding and developing a small number of exceptional human beings to become the mental equivalent of super-soldiers, assigned to look into Europe’s worst crimes. Antonia Scott is the Red Queen in Spain. She has an amazing mind, but also some issues, as you might suspect, given the two quotes at the top of this review. She has a pill she takes when it all becomes too much for her. Sometimes she takes too many. Jon Gutierrez is an erstwhile cop from Bilbao who was recruited to assist Antonia with matters of a police sort, and with more baby-sitting types of responsibilities. He is a large man (but not fat) with red hair, and a very good guy. The pair had a nasty adventure in book #1, with a primary villain who remained beyond their reach.

We begin with the extraction of a very water-logged body from a river. Antonia wonders if it might be a major nemesis from the prior book, Sandra Fajardo. She has been on the lookout for this baddie ever since.

The story continues with an assassination attempt at a shopping mall in Marbella, a city on Spain’s southern coast. A mafioso has been killed. His beautiful wife, Lola Moreno, who travels with a bodyguard, is set upon by a professional assassin or two, but the lady has skills, and manages to escape. She will provide one of the two major story lines of the novel. Antonia and Jon are sent to have a look by their boss, the mysterious Mentor, which made me think of M in the Bond novels

We alternate, more or less, between Lola’s flight from henchmen directed by a Russian mafia don, and Antonia’s and Jon’s tracking of clues. This is Antonia’s domain, seeing, or sensing things that others miss. She is somewhere between Sherlock Holmes and Lisbeth Salander of the Millenium series.

There will be blood, unpleasantness with cars, an infuriating discovery, close calls, and twists. We get some backstory on both Lola and Antonia, helping explain how they became who they are.

And then there is a killer, the famed assassin, the Black Wolf, feared even by other professional killers.

Many of the chapters begin with fairy-tale-like recollections. This one is typical.

There was once a little girl who grew up in a sad, loveless home where the food tasted of ashes and the future was black, she tells herself as she waits.

Jorado offers paralleling of characters. For example, the mob boss Orlov with Mentor, and Antonia with the Black Wolf. It is satisfying to see excellent craft like this on display.

He also regularly offers up a collection of interesting foreign words, that describe a particular situation or feeling better than Spanish or English. Here are a couple:

"Kegemteraan is in Malay. In Malay it would mean “the joy of stumbling”. The simultaneous feeling of pleasure and grief when you know that you have done something that you shouldn’t.
Curious. You know you are wrong but you keep doing it again and again since it hurts but you also enjoy it.

Bakiginin – In Karelian, a language spoken from the Gulf of Finland to the White Sea, it means “the sadness of a wall builder.” The contrast between the need to keep the world away from your life, and the impossibility of doing so."

Gomez-Jurado did this in the first book in the series. It is a charming element.

One thing that irks in tales of this sort is the perpetually stupid local authority. Here the area captain seems to be blaming A&J for the carnage that they are investigating, as if they had somehow caused it. But the author has some fun with this trope, which I will not spoil here.

Antonia’s and Jon’s personal relationships come in for examination, enhancing their appeal, but it is kept to a minimum, so adds color without interfering with the story.

And the story is great fun. A rock’em sock’em thriller, pitting the best mind against the darkest evil, with plenty of conflict, and lots of clues (and some red herrings) to tease you into guesses and theories. Humanizing of (some of) the baddies combines with offering appealing, quirky, leads and a story that speeds along way over the limit. The Black Wolf is an excellent follow-up to Red Queen, leaving one panting for the third entry in the series. That need will be satisfied on March 12, 2025, with the publication in English of The White King. I can hardly wait.

"She has a black belt in lying to herself, and only a yellow one in expressing her reality."

Review posted – 07/26/24

Publication date – 3/12/24 – in English
First published in Spain – 10/24/2019

I received an ARE of The Black Wolf from Minotaur in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating.

Antonia Scott is back and the action continues as she and her handler Jon, are attempting to find a possibly victim before the Russian mafia. The action is fast paced and the banter is witty in this sequel to The Red Queen. I give it 5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the opportunity to review Black Wolf by Juan Gomez Jurado

This one was better than the first but took a more traditional murder mystery route. I liked the characters better the second time around. The female lead is still a bit hard to relate to. I Get whiplash from the back-and-forth in how the author writes her.

I absolutely loved the Red Queen and loved Black Wolf too! Antonia Scott is my new favorite super hero! Can’t wait for book 3. Thank you NetGalley!

I met Antonia Scott in this volume of Gomez-Jurado series. She is so powerful, that before page 20 I had reserved Book 1. This is a totally satisfying character. Vulnerable, yet so far removed from a damsel in distress. Here in book 2, the actions from book 1 pursue her. A woman of equal strength and cunning has chosen to attempt to bring about her death. In an interview with The Hindu, an online news source, Gomez-Jurado shares that his thrillers are not simple chase and catch stress relievers. Rather, the character of Antonia is a prototype " “She is every fictional detective we have read in the last century and a half, from Edgar Allen Poe to Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, who perfected the formula of this particular type of character, a finder of truth.” The Hindu Sept. 6 2024. Indeed the author has created a world that is both reality based and ethereal. It is not the writer's job here to spell everything out. Instead the reader, like Antonia, must determine what story she is in. Helping us find our way through the thicket is Jon Gutierrez, still holding onto his police life, but now becoming the character whose job it is to reveal Antonia to the reader--like Watson is to Holmes. This all might make this thriller too geeky. In fact it is not, following the world wide success of The Red Queen,
Black Wolf offers deeper insights into this world, and leaves readers happily awaiting The White King.
You will note there are no plot summaries in this review. I challenge you to find your way into the world of Antonia Scott. You will not be disappointed.

Full disclosure: I received this ARC from netgalley and Minotaur in exchange for an unbiased review.

Second book in the Antonia Scott series. She is exceptionally brilliant, and part of a super-secret international crime-fighting organization, charged with solving Europe’s worst crimes. When overwhelmed, she takes a red pill (running for the shelter of mother’s little helper?), occasionally taking more than prescribed. Her partner, Jon Gutierrez, is a cop from Bilbao, to help manage her and try to follow police procedures. He is affable, bulky (but not fat!) with red hair, and gay. A mafioso has been killed in a coastal southern city in Spain, and his attractive wife (Lola) goes on the run, managing to escape the henchmen of a Russian mafia head, leading to the killing being assigned to a famous and feared assassin: the Black Wolf. Suspenseful.

This is the first book I have read by Jaun Gomez-Jurado and I have to admit it was not what I expected. I wish I had read book 1 in the series because while the author does his best to update readers to what happened in the first book and the different characters background I felt myself lost and needing to reread to better understand the characters reason for their action.

The story has many different view points that will keep readers wondering what is really going on. The story does the one thing I dislike which is leave readers with a cliff hanger!

Thank you to Netgalley for a chance to review Black Wolf.

3.5 Star rounded up. I would still count this book as successful but I did prefer the first book in the series. I was happy to sink back into a story with these characters and go on their next adventure. If you enjoyed the first book in this series, I think it’s safe to say you should check the second book out. I listened to most of this book on audio and loved the narration.

This one had a rough start for me. The dialogue felt clunky and forced and it took me a long time to get into it. I also didn’t love the way some lines were translated. For example, in one scene Jon was talking to Antonia, she took a while to respond and the line said something along the lines of ‘She took two and a half weeks to respond’. We wouldn’t say that in English, it would be more like ‘she took forever to respond’. I know, I’m nitpicking, but when I had to do translations in college that was drilled into us, you don’t always translate word for word. Could I translate a whole book? Absolutely not, but this still irked me. Once the story really got rolling, I couldn’t stop listening though. It was exciting and kept me on my toes guessing. The ending dug it’s hooks even further into me, I can’t wait for book 3. I was so happy to see Scott Brick was the narrator again, he is THE voice of Jon and I hope he continues reading this series.

Unfortunately, this book is being published by St Martins Press and there is still a boycott of providing them with reviews because of their lack of diversity in their review programs and their response (or lack their of) to an employee's actions that were deemed racist.

I could not finish this story.
First, it took way too long to get into the actual story.
Second, this is the second book in the series, and you really need to read the first book because the first 25% is referrals to the first book.
And third, the writing is odd. Maybe it's the translation from Spanish? But I found it an odd format and very silly.
Not my cup of tea.
I was given this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Black Wolf is another wild ride in the second book of the Antonia Scott series. A keen mind, intriguing characters and plenty of action make this a must read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced electronic ARC.

Follow the mysterious Red Queen, Antonia Scott, as she solves another unsolvable murder, this time involving the Russian mob. Things get dicey when the plot starts to unravel and more sinister parties become involved.

Unfortunately, I hadn't red the first book in the series when I got this. It was still an enjoyable read, but I would suggest starting with book one. There are a lot of references to stories and character history from it that didn't have as big of an emotional impact because of my oversight. I would have liked to know more about the setup of the Red Queen program and how Antonia's extremely intelligent mind functions and causes her to rely on various drugs to rein it in. Perhaps a bit more from the perspective of the detective and her deputy would have made the twists more impactful, too. That said, It was full of suspense, complex motivations and plot lines, and twists that left me reading late into the nights. It's definitely worth a read for the suspense readers out there. The three main characters--Antonia, Jon, and Lola--have rich backstories with what I imagine to be explored in the following books in the series.

3.5-4 stars
Good mystery and good quirky characters. The only thing I don't like is the dialogue, especially from Jon Gutierrez. Too many of his comments seem unnatural and strange. This could be due to cultural differences (what seems odd to me might be completely normal to someone from Spain) or to translation difficulties (I'm reading an English translation).

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

Black Wolf
Juan Gómez-Jurado
reviewed by Lou Jacobs


readersremains.com | Goodreads


A tour de force police procedural that quickly evolves into a mystery-thriller, Black Wolf begs the reader to immediately want more. Thankfully, this is the second book in a quirky trilogy that has been recently translated from Spanish and has won international awards.

The award-winning first novel was adapted into an amazing seven-episode series on Prime Network in February 2024. The star of the show and books is the reluctant and brilliant detective, Antonio Scott, who possesses an IQ of 242. She has a rare intelligence and a mind that sees what few others can. She is as compelling and unconventional as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander. From simple observations at a crime scene, she solves baffling murders. Her skills are legendary and continue to build as she works for a shadowy international agency known as the “Red Queen Project.” This project operates outside conventional law enforcement and answers to no higher authority, with units hidden from public scrutiny and social media in multiple European countries. They specialize in dealing with serial killers, pedophiles, terrorists, and human traffickers. Antonio’s only intermediary is known by the codename: Mentor. In the field, Antonio is accompanied by a “shield bearer”—an overweight gay cop, Inspector Jon Gutierrez. He provides Antonio with a buffer in dealing with “real-life” problems and logistics, sometimes muscle, and a grounding in humanity.

Police uncover a shipping container containing the remains of eight women. Meanwhile, trafficker Yuri Voronin is brutally murdered by the Russian Mafia, and his pregnant trophy wife, Lola Moreno, narrowly escapes and flees for her life, not knowing where to run or who to trust. Antonio and Jon are immediately assigned to the case by Mentor, with a high priority to find Lola before she is terminated. The mob, desperate to eliminate Lola, hires the notorious Black Wolf (“Chernaya Volchista”) to finish the job. Known as a vicious executioner and assassin who never fails, Antonio will have multiple terrifying confrontations with Black Wolf as blood spills and the body count rises.

Juan Gomez-Jurado proves to be a masterful storyteller as he weaves multiple plot twists together in a race against time while impending danger escalates for victims and investigators.

Unexpected confrontations in bloody detail intensify the intrigue and suspense. The last quarter of the book turns into a frenetic page-turner.

I personally switched back and forth between the audio and written versions. This tale was narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Scott Brick, a multiple award-winning narrator with deeply-seated experience as an actor. (I suggest jumping onto the roller coaster rides of Gregg Hurwitz’s “Orphan X” series—all narrated by the amazing Scott Brick.) Scott has the unique talent of providing an individual voice and timbre to each character, turning the tale into a dramatic presentation rather than just a “reading.” I cannot wait until the publication of the highly anticipated concluding novel, “White King.” This series has proven to be a gift to thriller aficionados.

Thanks to NetGalley, Minotaur Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing an Uncorrected Proof and Advance Audio version for my review, in exchange for an honest review.

I would give this book 3 1/2 stars. There were times it felt like it dragged on a little bit and parts that were so captivating. You couldn’t put it down. It goes through the partnership of Antonia, Scott and detective Gutierrez and their dynamic together. Antonia has special skills as a detective that no one else has, which can land her in situations that are potentially dangerous for them both.

Black Wolf is the 2nd book, by Juan Gomez Jurado, in the action packed Antonia Scott thriller series. This one is a bit of a departure from the first book in that it seems to be written more like a screenplay. With all the details, it was slow going and it took me several chapters to get into the book. I didn't love the ending either. While most of the story was wrapped up nicely, there was a huge cliffhanger at the very end. I personally don't like the huge ones when the next book isn't available yet.
Antonia Scott is back on the case. With her special gifts, she's the anchor for the Red Queen Project. Despite her superior mind she's having a hard time letting go of her last job. But with each new clue, she finds herself being drawn more and more into the newest case.

Just couldn't get into the story. Even put it down for awhile and tried again. Not a bad book just not for me

Antonia Scott and Jon Gutierrez are back in this fast paced, heart pounding sequel to Red Queen! Wonderful pacing, great plot, and lots of twists and turns that will keep readers hooked.

Scott and Gutierrez are back on a case and this time they are on the crosshairs of a mysterious hired assassin, known as the Black Wolf. In a race against time, they must solve two seemingly unconnected murders to not only escape the Black Wolf but to also save the actual intended target.

Thank you Minotaur Books, #partner, for the advanced copy of Black Wolf in exchange for my honest review.

This is the second book in Juan Gomez-Jurado’s Antonia Scott trilogy, and it just might be my new obsession! I loved book one, Red Queen, and this second one was just as good, if not better, than the first. I’m so glad these books are being translated into English!

I loved being back with Antonia and Jon Gutierrez. There is just something about their unlikely partnership that works so well. This time around, they find themselves with quite a complicated case and of course don’t always see eye to eye with the other police agencies they must work with. The case is pretty high stakes, considering the Spanish Mafia are involved, and there is a lot of action, but of course it’s also a pretty dark and graphic book. Again, if you like the Millenium series featuring Liz Salander or the Joona Linna series by Lars Kepler, these books will be just perfect for you!

What I really appreciated in this particular installment is that not only do I feel we as the reader got to know Antonia better, but we were doing that alongside Jon. They are still relatively new to each other, but have developed such a great bond and have really come to care for each other – platonically speaking of course. Their friendship really works to help them keep each other sane…and the humor that ensues because of this at times is just hysterical, which is a nice break from the overall dark tone of the book.

A fast-paced, action-filled story that ends with quite the cliff-hanger, this is one series not to miss! And now I’ll just be waiting ever-so-patiently to get my hands on that third book!