Picture this: you sign up for a dream job, or employ a dream staff member. All of a sudden the future looks rosy. The salary is excellent, your staffing problems are solved, and your friends are envious. But what if it’s just too good to be true? Maybe you’ve inadvertently made a pact with the devil. Maybe you’ve employed the devil…
In my new book The Temp, high-flyer Carrie reluctantly takes on a maternity cover while she has the baby that she never planned. New employee Emma seems to be everything you’d want your cover to be: bright, creative, helpful. But when she starts at the office, Carrie’s perfect life starts to unravel. Her bank account is inexplicably overdrawn, her husband seems strangely distant and colleagues are all too happy to take Emma’s creative direction. Carrie suddenly finds herself dying to get back to work . . .
The workplace is a brilliant arena for a thriller—your hopes, your dreams, your very livelihood can be threatened when things go wrong. So in readiness for your daily commute, here is my list of some of the most vivid workplace-set thrillers.
The Firm, by John Grisham
An utterly terrifying book where the sense of entrapment gets your heart pounding from the minute you realize just how cleverly Mitch’s bosses have trussed him up. Then follows a game of cat and mouse that has you turning the pages furiously to see who will outwit the other and whether Mitch can get out of his job alive. Written by a true master, this is one of my all-time favorites, that I can read again and again and it never loses its grip.
The Perfect Nanny, by Leila Slimani
You think you’ve found the perfect person to look after your child but little do you realize they are mentally unravelling… An explosive book with incredible tension that builds as we learn more about the so-called perfect nanny. This one will leave you haunted long after reading.
Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L Sayers
From one of the best crime writers is a book set in an advertising agency in the 1930s. Lord Peter Wimsey stars in a classic golden-age detective story where the plot is cleverly written with plenty of twists. Add in Sayers’ wit and an insight into post-war advertising drawn from her own experience and you have a Mad Men-esque tale full of secrets where a copy-writer falls to his death on the stairs in what appears to be a simple accident…
Apple Tree Yard, by Louise Doughty
A respected career woman at the top of her game impulsively begins an affair with a man she meets at the House of Parliament in London, putting everything she values at risk. She thinks she can control this relationship but soon events begin to spiral into yet more deceit. Just what did she get up to and who exactly is to blame? A thriller that keeps you guessing right up to the last pages, and will have you drawing breath in outrage on more than one occasion.
Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty
OK, so I’m cheating a little with this one. It’s not set strictly in a workplace, more a community, but that does include a school, where the horrific deed is done. This is a witty, addictive book with characters that we will all recognize from our own lives… and perhaps even in ourselves. It tackles serious subjects alongside the humor and pettiness of playground one-upmanship and even if you’ve figured out who’s to blame, you relish reading right up to the very end and getting that warm sense of satisfaction that it’s all played out just as it should have done.
Anatomy of a Scandal, by Sarah Vaughan
A political thriller set in the corridors of the British establishment with more than a hint at recent events. This novel leaves you all the more roused for its insight into a world of privilege that feels absolutely genuine. A cautionary tale about how we can never truly know someone else, even your own husband.
The Clocks, by Agatha Christie
I grew up on Agatha Christie novels in my early teens and this Hercule Poirot mystery captured my imagination. Sheila Webb is a temping secretary who is sent to a client’s address to take some shorthand dictation. She lets herself in and stumbles across a dead body on the floor. When questioned by the police she says that the cuckoo clock struck three – but all the other clocks in the house were an hour later. There’s something about this that I found incredibly creepy. Anyone who’s been in an older relative’s house where the silence is punctuated only by the loud tick of a clock, sometimes more than one, will know exactly what I mean.
Misery, by Stephen King
I just had to include this one. I know Paul Sheldon isn’t working in his traditional space but he’s still working, writing a new book for an absolute nutcase of an ex-nurse, who is bum-clenchingly petrifying. I defy you to sit still while you read as Paul races back to his bed, desperate not to be caught truanting and snooping around the prison of a house while his captor, nurse Annie is heading up the driveway. I feel a sweat coming on just remembering it.
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So when you head into work today, and greet your colleagues, or your employee turns up with a big smile on their face, you might want to ask yourself… how much do I really know about this individual? It’s amazing what secrets people can keep. And that dream job just might turn out to be an absolute nightmare.
