54 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth WareZero Days
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: Cybersecurity and Technology
Set in present-day London, Zero Days uses cybersecurity concerns to create the novel’s central mystery: who killed Gabe Medway and why. Gabe and the protagonist, Jack Cross, are computer experts who assess the security of companies that hire them, with a focus on how well protected clients’ data is. Gabe is a coder who looks for security vulnerabilities (zero-days) in apps. The discovery of one such flaw (which was in fact a deliberate security hole to facilitate cybercrime) leads to his murder. None of these occupations existed until recently, as the first mobile app was created in 1993. Concerns about the privacy of mobile phone users have only increased since then.
In her quest to find her husband’s killer, Jack relies on social media to investigate the security practices of Sunsmile Insurance and publicize Gabe’s findings. She uses multiple “burner” phones that cannot be traced by police and creates Wi-Fi hotspots so that she can access the internet. She employs Signal, an encryption app, to contact her sister. Finally, she livestreams her confrontation with Cole, leading to her exoneration. Even the novel’s title refers, at least in part, to the security flaw that Gabe is murdered to conceal. These events could not have taken place until, at the earliest, the turn of the 21st century.
Literary Context: Mysteries and Psychological Thrillers
Mysteries and psychological thrillers employ many common and well-known tropes and patterns. One common starting point is an inexplicable murder. The victim is often described, like Gabe, as loved by everyone. The murder is the inciting incident beginning the narrative arc. Another convention of such stories is an amateur detective who must solve the crime because the police are incompetent or at least misguided. Malik’s hounding of Jack wastes time and energy that would be better spent in pursuit of the true killer. Jack must become a detective.
The genre also uses red herrings, or intentionally misleading clues. Jack considers Jeff a suspect because of his past abuse and violence, as well as his threat to get revenge on her. Cole, on the other hand, is an example of an overlooked suspect because he was Gabe’s best friend and seems genuinely shocked and saddened by his death, even offering to help Jack find the killer.
Jack has a light bulb moment typical of the genre when she hears Cole’s voice on the recording at Sunsmile. Suddenly, everything begins to come together. More such moments are facilitated by her conversation with Hel, who plays the role of the detective’s sidekick, much like Dr. Watson in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes. Then, there is a final reveal when the culprit admits everything under pressure from the sleuth. In the novel, Jack livestreams Cole’s confession. Following genre conventions, the novel ends with a new status quo in which the sleuth incorporates lessons from their adventure into a new life. Jack becomes a devoted mother with a child named after her late husband.
One difference between straight murder mysteries like those pioneered by Agatha Christie and contemporary mystery/thrillers is that the latter involve immediate danger to the life of the sleuth. While solving the crime, the detective must also run, fight, and hide, often because they are a suspect in the official investigation or the true perpetrators want to silence them. The plot of Zero Days closely follows the 1993 film The Fugitive, which was based on a 1960s TV series of the same name. In the film, the protagonist (played by Harrison Ford) is accused by police of murdering his beloved spouse, injures his abdomen during an escape from custody, and uses false credentials to follow a trail of clues to the guilty party, who turns out to be a close colleague and family friend engaged in professional misconduct to enrich himself.
Thus, Zero Days reflects many of the plot devices, conventional characters, and narrative patterns consistent with the genre of mysteries and psychological thrillers.
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By Ruth Ware
