Published by Amazon Original Stories on February 17, 2026
I’m not a fan of Deaver’s Constant Marlowe stories, largely because Marlowe is the kind of self-righteous character who thinks she’s entitled to bully people. Marlowe is a special agent with the Illinois Department of Criminal Investigations. She starts Untouchable by detaining a man she doesn’t know because a young woman began to cry after he spoke to her. That hardly seems like evidence of a crime, given that the man walked past the woman on the sidewalk without speaking to her. The woman stopped and shouted an obscenity at him while screaming “Are you the one?” She only cried after he said something in response that Marlowe didn’t hear. Where is the crime? Why does Marlowe think she has the right to accost the man and demand his ID?
Marlowe believes her suspicions are founded because she sees “fear” in the woman’s eyes, notwithstanding the woman’s insistence that she doesn’t need help. Marlow believes she has a spidey sense that is triggered by women's hidden pain so she decides to meddle. Like too many crime novel heroines, Marlowe considers herself an avenging angel for abused women, but that doesn’t give her the right to abuse her authority as a law enforcement officer. And when Deaver tells us that “Constant Marlowe believed that rules were more suggestions than anything,” I have to wonder why a bully with a badge who disrespects the law is anyone a crime fiction fan would regard as a hero.
Jeffery Deaver could have used this novella to explore Marlowe’s sense of entitlement or her willingness to violate the civil rights of men in her quest to protect women. Instead, like most writers who glorify “tough guy” cops of either gender, he appears to believe that readers should admire a character who routinely betrays her oath to uphold the Constitution.
Marlowe carries a locked bag so that, when a suspect doesn’t conform to her behavioral standards, she can lock up her gun and challenge him to a fight. Cops should be fired when they start fights, even if they believe the men they beat up “deserve it.” But when Marlowe hands her locked weapon to a stranger to hold for her — someone who might make off with her firearm while she’s busy fighting — I have to wonder why anyone would believe she should be allowed to carry a badge.
Regardless of my reservations about Marlowe, I am always prepared to be entertained by a good story. Untouchable falls short. Marlowe is doing something in Prescott, Illinois, home to fictional Hamline University, when she sees the encounter between Kathleen Delaine (the crying woman) and the unfortunate man who leered at her.
Marlowe learns that Delaine wrote a letter to the local newspaper suggesting that Hamline’s football program should pay more attention to concussions and the lasting brain damage they can cause. She is unfairly blamed on social media for destroying the football program as vengeance for being dumped by a football player. Someone posts a photo of Delaine sleeping on the team bus and accuses her of shagging the entire team.
A Manosphere podcaster picks up the story and Delaine begins to receive nasty emails suggesting all the sexual fantasies the emailers would like to act out with her. When she shouted “Are you the one?” she was asking whether he sent the emails. She shouts the same question to every guy who gives her a knowing smile.
The plot addresses Marlowe’s effort to identify the “stalker” emailer, a quest that has her confronting the podcaster. None of this is particularly interesting. Neither are lectures about chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the various bullet calibers that start with .3 (.308, .32, etc.) and Marlowe’s career as a boxer.
Any interest the story might have generated is diminished by its preachy nature. While I broadly agree with its message that the Manosphere is doing the country no favors, I don’t enjoy heavy-handed lectures about the evils of social media delivered by psychopathic characters who would themselves benefit from a good lecture about appropriate behavior.
The story goes off the rails with the armed confrontation of a suspected stalker. That incident leads to a silly explanation for the stalking. Without spoiling anything, I’ll simply suggest that the bad guy’s motivation isn’t within spitting distance of being credible. Even if I had enjoyed the rest of the story, the attempt to reimagine the stalking as a component of a deeper and unrelated crime would have been sufficient reason not to recommend Untouchable.
NOT RECOMMENDED