The Devil’s Work by Mark Edwards
My rating: 4/5 cats
this book is a perfect example of the psychological thriller, and refreshingly, it is one of the few being published today that isn’t trying to be Gone Girl.
our heroine, sophie greenwood, has everything going for her: a happy marriage to a successful journalist named guy, a beautiful four-year-old daughter named daisy, and she’s about to start work at her dream job, jackdaw books, the legendary children’s publishing house. sophie will be re-entering the workforce for the first time after daisy’s birth, and is eager to make a good first impression. the only apprehension she has is buried deep in her past; her close friendship with jasmine—the troubled granddaughter of jackdaw’s founder back in her university days—a relationship that had tragic consequences.
but that was years ago and far away, and sophie is excited to get back into the rigor and challenges of the workplace, after four years of sippy cups and baby talk.
however, from the start, the challenges she faces are much more sinister than she had anticipated: an awkward lunch meeting with jasmine’s grandfather—franklin bird himself, during which he comes off a little creepy, the mystery surrounding her predecessor’s sudden departure, the rumors about a suicide in the basement library, and an infestation of cockroaches in sophie’s new desk; a creature to which she has a particular aversion.
and that’s just the first day.
from that point forward, situations arise that seem to be targeting sophie and her family directly: her husband comes under very public fire for an offensive tweet he claims he never posted, accusations of sexual harassment lead to the dismissal of one of her team members, emails go missing, sabotaging important projects, and sophie’s beautiful and ambitious assistant seems to be watching her every move, clawing for advancement.
desperate to prove that her four-year hiatus hasn’t affected her abilities, sophie stays later and later at the office, putting additional childcare pressures on mark, who is trying to salvage his reputation and his career against the tweet-backlash, and only causing more friction in their relationship.
by the time things escalate into truly threatening territory: the beating of a co-worker, a hooded man following her home, a frightening situation involving daisy at an office function, a mouse glued to her front door, and some arson—sophie is completely unsettled, wary of her co-workers, and has nowhere to turn.
while sophie’s present-day story is building, the novel also shifts back in time to sophie’s university days, where her friendship with jasmine unfolds slowly to its dramatic conclusion, and there are also some chapters told from the POV of the villain, tantalizingly unidentified until edwards is ready to reveal.
there are excellent twists in this book, and the day-to-day publishing business is oddly fascinating. edwards has a fantastic handle on office politics, and the ability to infuse ordinary circumstances with atmospheric tension and dread. the ending is admittedly a bit cray, but with this genre you always have to suspend disbelief, allow for coincidence, and accept that the antagonist is going to have both a preternatural sense of timing and an uncanny ability to predict a victim’s response to a threat. psychological suspense is not a genre that is meant to hold a mirror up to reality, but to provide good shivery thrills and surprising twists, taking the reader off-guard as it does the same to its characters.
this doesn’t have the stick-to-your-ribs staying power of the (very few) books that take the genre and do something unexpected with it that inspires legions of copycats, but it’s a solid and engaging suspense novel totally worth your time.
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