DEADLOCK

In Lynn’s (Enticing Iris,
2019, etc.) romantic thriller, a software engineer seeks help from an alluring
hacker who had a complicated history with her missing twin sister.

Lindsey Morris is accustomed to her
identical twin’s flakiness, but she’s infuriated when Lena skips out on their
parents’ anniversary party. Lena finally responds to Lindsey’s messages with a
vague text, telling her to get help at a particular address. Lindsey first goes
to her sister’s trashed apartment, where a strange man calling himself
“Griffin” shows up, claims to know Lena, and asks Lindsey not to notify the
police. Lindsey then goes to address
that her sister supplied, where she’s surprised to see a man she knows: Jace
Adams. Lena had asked Jace to hack into MIT’s system years ago to change her
grade, which resulted in him getting the boot from the university. Lindsey
convinces him that she’s not Lena, but he’s reluctant to help her search for
her missing twin. Still, he and Lindsey quickly grow close, and he soon shares
his suspicions about who may have abducted her sis. It turns out that Jace
works for the Nest, a clandestine group of white-hat hackers whose former
member has a vendetta against him. Lena’s disappearance, however, may have to
do with yet another secret. In any case, Lindsey, a highly skilled coder, is
determined to find her, even if she has to do it alone. Lynn successfully
establishes a believably contentious relationship between the two leads. Jace
initially has trouble trusting Lindsey, as he’s hated her sibling for years,
and Lindsey, quite rightly, deems him “a real asshole” shortly after they meet.
Nevertheless, a mutual physical attraction is there from the start, and their
sympathy for each other gradually grows into affection. Lynn also keeps the
plot moving at a steady clip, with steamy, sometimes-explicit sexual encounters
and instances of imminent peril. However, the story’s technological aspect
feels stunted, as readers hardly see Lindsey’s capabilities; her covert
installation of software, for instance, involves little more than plugging in a
flash drive, and she tackles another problem by merely rebooting a computer.

The lead characters’ well-defined intimacy gives
this uneven tale a boost of energy.