There can’t be many characters in fiction who couldn’t care less about inheriting a goldmine. But Maria Jaqueline Ribeiro da Silva, protagonist of ‘The Chemical Code’ (Point Blank, £9.99, ISBN 9780861542031) has more important things on her mind. So pressing that they scarcely fade into the background even while being attacked and drugged by three goons in an agrochemical plant in São Paulo, Brazil. The henchmen unambiguously want to kill Jaq Silver, but she’s too smart for that. Recalling Shakespeare’s Hermia, though Jaq “be but little she is fierce”. And clever.

Too clever for these bruisers, as she employs her senses to outsmart them, navigating her way out of trouble by using the laws of physics, her encyclopaedic knowledge of the smells of improvised anaesthetics and processed sugar cane, while casually referring to intelligent sensors driving automatic valves, vacuum ejectors and flow-limiting safety devices.

The men on her trail, Silver tells us...