<b>With the cunning of <i>Gone Girl</i>’s Amy Dunne, and as dangerous as <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i>’s Lisbeth Salander, the femme fatale of this <i>Talented Mr. Ripley</i>–esque psychological thriller is sexy, smart, and very, very bad in all the best ways.</b><br><b>&nbsp;</b><br>Not since Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley has there been so piercing a portrait of someone on the outside, looking in. Meet femme fatale Judith Rashleigh. She’s a woman who knows what she wants—and exactly how to get it. A smooth confidence woman with a talent for self-invention, she’s seen inside the invisible club of the debonair and wealthy, and she knows where she belongs.<i>Maestra</i> is a glamorous, ferocious debut psychological thriller and the beginning of a razor-sharp trilogy.<br>&nbsp;<br><i>I called myself Lauren again, gave the same story of a tour of Italy between jobs. For a moment, as the Vespa chugged up the steep road away from the little town, with the lake below us pink in the sunset, I rested my face against his jacket, letting my hands gently grip his hipbones, and felt a little lonely. This was how it was going to be, I thought. If I went through with this, I’d never be able to be myself again. Still, we’d never been that close.</i>