Escape Velocity

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, and readers will hope they won’t have to wait another 27 years for her next book. (Oct.)