Praise for Escape Velocity
“Wickedly Hilarious”
– Hank Phillippi Ryan, award-winning author of Say No More
“A financial and legal thriller with rich character development that creates an absolutely compelling stay-up-all-night read.” —Alice La Plante, award-winning author of Turn of Mind
“Wolfe made her debut in 1989 with The Last Billable Hour, which won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Her accomplished, amusing follow-up, a thriller set in California’s Silicon Valley, stars paralegal Georgia Griffin. Georgia, who has escaped from Piney, Ark., to a paralegal job at Lumina Software, sets out to impress her boss, general counsel Ken Madigan, and to earn enough money to move out of her car and to bring her 15-year-old sister, Katie-Ann, to live with her. When Georgia discovers that some Lumina staff members are unproductive or obstructive or crooked, she decides to use the skills that she learned from her con artist father, who’s currently in prison, to neutralize her adversaries in such departments as sales, legal, and personnel. Her efforts bring positive changes as well as deadly danger. Wolfe, a lawyer who knows the high-tech world, makes a very welcome return.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Rating: A- “Georgia Griffin was raised in Piney, Arkansas by her con man father. He has trained her in all of his skills but she is determined to follow a law-abiding path to life. So after taking a paralegal course, she drives to Silicon Valley and interviews for a number of jobs, sleeping at night in her car to preserve her meager resources. She is nothing like the other candidates she is up against, but by some miracle she manages to get hired to work in the legal department of Lumina Software. From the outset Georgia is determined to make a difference and it soon becomes obvious to her that means using her “skills” to get rid of some of the employees who are keeping Lumina from being a great company. Thus begins a quiet campaign of subtle manipulation worthy of Horace Rumpole himself.
Some may wonder if this is a crime novel with some justification. It is more a legal thriller and there are some deaths along the way, but it doesn’t fit the mold of your normal mystery. Don’t let that deter you or you’ll miss a lot of fun.
I particularly enjoyed the insights into corporate life and work within an in-house legal department. It made me recall my few years in a similar situation (in-house counsel) and the wrangling between our department and the marketing department or the egocentric corporate management. We wanted to do everything within the bounds of legality. They wanted to do what they wanted to do and then have us fix the problem or find a legal way to do it. Some things never change.
Georgia is a gem of a main character—an employee not afraid to use her “cons” to give the incompetent and malevolent Lumina employees their just desserts. The book is a bit too long and there are some passages when Susan Wolfe gets into the legal “weeds.” But Wolfe’s legal expertise, good sense of humor and writing chops make ESCAPE VELOCITY a real winner.
If the author’s name seems familiar to you old timers, it’s because she won the Edgar Award in 1989 for THE LAST BILLABLE HOUR!” —Deadly Pleasures, Rating A-
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Just read this book and loved it. Witty, fun, and a great read. I also loved “The Last Billable Hour” by the same author. She really knows the Silicon Valley business environment, and turns this knowledge to great entertainment for all of us. I wouldn’t miss the book launch at Books Inc October 4!