Firewall Book Review

Action-packed and full of twists and turns, this third book of the Emma Streat Mystery series does not disappoint!

About Firewall

Former opera singer Emma Streat has survived the murder of her husband and the destruction of her beautiful old house. Now a full-time single mother, she struggles to move forward and make a home for her two sons. Because of her detection skills, she has become a go-to person for help―so, when her rich, feisty, socialite godmother is blackmailed, she turns immediately to Emma.

Soon, Emma founds herself thrust into the dark world of cybercrime. Mounting challenges take her to exclusive European settings where she mixes with top people in the financial and art collecting worlds and has intriguing and emotion-packed experiences with men―including her dynamic ex-lover, Lord Andrew Rodale. When she is targeted by a cybercrime network using cutting-edge technology, it takes all of Emma’s resilience and wits to survive and bring the wily, ruthless criminal she’s hunting to justice.

My Thoughts

Firewall is an action packed novel with a powerful female main character in Emma that you will not want to put down. .

We are introduced to Emma, who has made a second career for herself solving crimes for the government. We learn that this was after the murder of her husband where she refused to take the simple answer and decided to investigate the case herself. This marked the start of her new career and life as a single mother. I did not realize there were other books in this series but this did not impact my comprehension or enjoyment of the book. Eugenia gives you enough information to understand the current plot and how it is connected to Emma’s past but doesn’t overload you with the previous plots and history.

I loved that we have a single, strong female character who has flaws that so many of us have but she embraces them which makes us love her even more. She is loving, kind, thoughtful but also vulnerable, honest and looking for more in life. She has been through a lot with the loss of her husband and having to reinvent herself but she comes through it fighting each step of the way. Eugenia does a great job with her female characters – Emma’s Godmother who we meet at the beginning at the novel, is feisty and full of fire. I loved how she developed her female characters in this novel – they were the heroes and did the rescuing, something we need to see more of in novels.

The plot was very well planned and laid out in the novel. Emma travels around the world solving what started off as the blackmailing of her Godmother. Eugenia keeps us on our toes, continuously guessing what will happen next as Emma solves multiple cyber crimes. Emma is put to the test many times throughout the novel to solve a string of seemingly unrelated crimes but as we find out later in the novel are woven together expertly by Eugenia.

This is an excellent novel from start to finish – it was fun, thrilling and I could not put it down.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating: 4.5/5

About the Author

Eugenia Lovett West (known to her friends as Jeannie) was born in Boston, MA. Her father was Reverend Sidney Lovett, the widely known and loved former chaplain at Yale. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and worked for Harper’s Bazaar and the American Red Cross. Then came marriage, four children, volunteer work, and freelancing for local papers. Her first novel, The Ancestors Cry Out, was published by Doubleday; it was followed by two mysteries, Without Warning and Overkill published by St. Martin’s Press. West divides her time between Essex, CT and Holderness, NH, where she summers with her large extended family. Visit her at www.eugenialovettwest.com.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review, all opinions expressed are my own.