Customer Reviews

Wearing the Spider

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A fast-paced and fun legal thriller, great for vacation reading. The tension builds steadily until the last few pages. The story is unique, weaving together elements of mystery, high-tech law, and even some romance. The author has done her research and the legal and high-tech details ring true. Evie is a sympathetic character and her cat-and-mouse game with the bad guys will keep you turning the pages. Looking forward to hearing more from Susan Schaab!

In this, her first novel, Susan Schaab has written an absorbing and well paced story. I found it to be a compelling page turner. The story evolves around Evie who is hoping to become a Partner in the law firm for which she works.She finds that she is involved with deals of which she had no knowledge. Her computer is hacked into, her files are tampered with and her apartment is broken into. She suspects Alan whose sexual advances she rebuffed. She begins to fear for her life not to mention her sanity. She finally enlists the aid of a man with whom she is reluctantly falling in love. The title is great. When one is in the lead breaking a new trail in Africa the leader must walk through spider webs and therefore ends up 'wearing the spider'. I thoroughly recommend this book and sincerely hope Ms. Schaab has other stories up her sleeve. Patricia Craig.

This high-tech mystery is definitely believable in today's fast moving internet world. It certainly brings many concerns to our attention about our complex world and how small it has become with all the international exchange of product and information.

Ms. Schaab did a great job developing the characters. She held the reader's attention by a very detailed focus on the plot, or mystery, of the novel itself. She did not "color the picture" for us with excessive information of the sexual exploits of the heroin. Instead, she kept the "mystery" the central them of the novel while weaving all the components to a very intriguing, high tech story.

This is the type of book you can enjoy, share, and give as a gift to anyone!...Good Job!

I read a lot of legal thriller books, but seldom does a book "grab" me from the beginning. "Wearing the Spider" did just that. The story line, which is quite believable, involves a relevant subject of current national concern - identity theft. Ms. Schaab has created characters which are realistic and well developed. This fascinating story unfolds at a fast pace all the way through to the last page. It is also refreshing to read a novel that can tell a captivating story and yet have a herione whose love interest is wholesome. I'm looking forward to future novels by this talented writer.

This book is one of the few legal thrillers that manages to be an exciting, well-plotted, fast-paced thriller and yet still be plausible as it describes the life of an associate in a major law firm.

Evie Sullivan is a respected senior associate who handles intellectual property disputes when the novel opens. She's also about to become the victim of an insidious plot that has everyone else around her questioning her sanity or her honesty.

The image of wearing a spider may make you shudder, but so will what happens to Evie. Something similar could so easily happen to anyone in the corporate world.

A friend is related to the author, and I agreed to read the book as soon as I was told it was coming out. When the volume arrived and I saw the title, I thought, "Oh, no. This is going to be icky." Then I started reading, and could barely put it down. Although the subject of identity theft is scary enough, and I hated to see the heroine also the victim, the light touch of romance, the intelligence of the characters, and the comfortable realism of the legal, socio-political, and economic particulars made the book a five-star winner for me. The behaviors of the characters were as consistent, human and entertaining as those found in a book by a well-seasoned author. Way to go, Susan!!!

This high-tech thriller's plot is a unique look at an under-reported type of
identity theft - theft of reputation and credibility within the professional
workplace. The lead character, a dutiful lawyer working her way to
partnership in a New York law firm, is targeted it seems because she is
well-respected in her firm and thus would not ordinarily have her actions
closely scrutinized. Add, to her established competence, the fact that she
is not as likely to "make waves" within the firm because she opted not to
report an incident of sexual harassment, and you have the perfect scapegoat.

At first, she is plagued by maddening office recordkeeping errors and wrong
emails until she realizes that someone within the firm seems to be
sabotaging her work. But, is she right or is this just an annoying patch of
serendipity in the busy life of a senior firm associate? Even when she
becomes more certain she's being targeted for some type of sinister scheme,
can she prove her suspicions? Her firm appears ready to fairly hear her
suspicions, but will they do the right thing?

The dialogue is especially good. It's not only believable, but entertaining
and effective at developing the characters. I really felt I knew them by the
end of the story and I became emotionally involved in their plight. The
romantic subplot was realistic, but was refreshingly pure. I could easily
see these characters on a movie screen. This novel is an intriguing read on
every level.

It all starts with a simple question from Evie Sullivan's secretary. Why is there an expense receipt from a hotel Evie never visited? It seems like an innocent mistake - lots of people in Evie's law firm visit Texas - but then Evie starts noticing other things. The phone logs are incorrect. People she's never spoken with seem to think they know her. Strange emails start appearing in her inbox. A client is under the impression she's been working on a project to which she has never been assigned.

She'd like to think it's innocent, but the deeper she digs, the more she realizes that she's in over her head... and that it's not innocent at all. Evie has been targeted, picked as the scapegoat in an elaborate illegal scheme that leads right to the partner whose sexual advances she rejected a few months earlier.... or would if the trail didn't stop disappearing.
Forget making partner. Now Evie has to worry about keeping herself alive as she dances the he said, she said tango and attempts to recover the electronic data that supports her story.

It's almost unbelievable, and yet it rings frighteningly true. Schaab takes her readers on an engrossing yet amazingly educational journey through the dark, hidden world of high-level corporate crime. It all sounds confusing, but Schaab knows her stuff and has a gift for making it understandable without letting her readers feel as though they're being talked down to or taught. Technical explanations are fit seamlessly into the story and the prose flows from action to explanation and back again without a single blip.

That makes it all the more realistic... and all the more terrifying.

The murderers, criminals, and corrupt corporate moguls that Evie faces are frightening in their own right, and the readers' hearts will beat faster when mysterious strangers follow Evie down the street and mysterious voices talk on the other end of her phone line, but the truly terrifying thing is how true everything rings. Schaab weaves a story so realistic that it feels as though it could happen at any time at any major company, just about anywhere in the developed world.

It isn't a pleasant thought, though it does make for a darn good read.

By the way, the phrase wearing the spider has nothing to do with actual spiders; it refers to leading on a difficult path. In the jungle that's called wearing the spider as the leader gets to break through all the spider webs and often ends up quite literally wearing a spider.

Let's hope that's what Schaab is doing - wearing the spider as she forges the path that her next books will follow.

In "Wearing the Spider" Susan Schaab has written a sophisticated legal thriller that combines interesting, well thought-out characters with a plot of identity theft which grabs the reader immediately. It is hard to put the book down until you find out what happens in the next twist in the story line. It is that interesting! Ms. Schaab has a rare talent to hold the reader's attention constantly, there are no slow spots. Well Done!

I pulled out my copy of Wearing the Spider this past Saturday morning on the beach. To my surprise, I read practically non-stop.

This book is difficult to put down, you literally can't wait to get to the next sentence/page/chapter to see what happens next. To say it is a fast paced thriller, in my opinion, is an understatement.

I was only able to spend two days at the beach, unfortunately (or fortunately!)--I spent the entire time reading!

I wait with great anticipation of Susan's second book, as I am sure it will only be better--if at all possible! :)