The Last Equation of Isaac Severy

 The Last Equation of Isaac Severy

By Nova Jacobs

The first book of the summer! I was looking for something plot heavy -- something I could get lost in. So I

turned to a mystery, and a nerdy one at that.

The book opens with the death -- Murder? Suicide? -- of a Cal Tech mathematician named Isaac Severy. Whatever the label, turns out that his death was in some way fated. It was predicted by an equation that consumed the latter half of Severy's, an algorithm designed to predict the death (by their own hand or others because, as the book points out, how different are the two?) of people in the Los Angeles area. 

Should such an equation work it would be, of course, quite valuable. And dangerous, if it fell into the wrong hands. To prevent this eventuality, Isaac sends a note, delivered posthumously, to his adopted daughter/granddaughter Hazel instructing her how to find the equation and who to entrust it with so that it does not contribute to more evil in the world. 

Hazel's quest to fulfill this request is where the plot comes in. Given that she is adopted, she is not as mathematically minded as her brothers and sisters. Or is she? It's a question that allows the author to, rather shallowly, delve into ideas about nature versus nurture and the extent to which we are actually in control of our own destinies. 

The reviews call this a remarkable debut. It certainly was a fun book. A great jumping off point to the summer.