THE FOURTH WOMAN

In Teukolsky’s novel, a woman uses the power of technology to fight back against a stalker who’s embedded himself in her life in more ways than one.

Boston-based cybersecurity expert Madeline Geiger is getting ready for a night out when a cyberattacker attempts to lock her out of her computer with ransomware. She shifts to attack mode herself, tracking down the hacker and hitting where it hurts by causing the unknown attacker’s computer to melt. Her first date with neuroscientist Vincent Cantley is rescheduled for the next night at a bar, where she’s turned off by his descriptions of his brainwave experiments on rats: “Using complicated hand gestures, he describes his experiments with mice and rats, starting with tiny lights implanted in their heads.” She agrees to a second date, though, involving dinner and a visit to his lab. Things quickly go south when she learns more about his experiments; later, she repeatedly reports Vince’s increasingly creepy behavior to the police, who do nothing—leaving it up to her to deal with his disturbing pursuit. Madeline is a compelling narrator with the tech savvy of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and the brassy audacity of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski. Her clear, assertive intelligence, however, makes some of her interactions with the other characters confusing. She’s desperately worried for her mother, for example, who has Alzheimer’s disease, but leaves her home alone and unsupervised. She later keeps the mysterious Gretchen Auerbach on as her mom’s caretaker, even after an incident in which her charge escapes the house. Madeline also seems unable to extricate herself from a relationship with Vince, whom she loathes, which causes the story to sag in the middle. Still, Madeline is a tenacious character, and readers will be on her side as the plot encompasses a network of incels, and only her female friends seem willing or able to help her. The narrative’s psychological games become maddening, and the truth behind Vince’s pursuit of Madeline is upsetting, but Madeline’s investigation results in a satisfying payoff.

A sometimes-frustrating but often compelling dark thriller.