Layne Fargo is a thriller author with a background in theater and library science. She’s a Pitch Wars mentor, a member of the Chicagoland chapter of Sisters in Crime, and the cocreator of the podcast Unlikeable Female Characters. Fargo lives in Chicago with her partner and their pets.Her debut novel is Temper.
At CrimeReads Fargo tagged eight thrillers featuring ambitious women, including:
Give Me Your Hand by Megan AbbottRead about another entry on the list.
Kit and Diane also bonded over their shared sense of ambition back when they were teenagers. But by the time Give Me Your Hand begins, they’re rival scientists vying for the approval of their tough-as-nails boss, Dr. Lena Severin. No shine theory for these two: there’s a single spot available on theresearch team for Dr. Severin’s groundbreaking new research study, so in order for one to succeed, the other has to fail. Both women are brilliant and striving, but Diane’s ruthlessness gives her the edge. There’s nothing Diane won’t do to get what she wants, and Kit admires her as much as she fears her.
That just about sums up how we as readers feel about most of the women on this list. They may shock and scare us, but we can’t help rooting for them a little bit too—and turning those pages to find out what their ambitions might drive them to do next!
Give Me Your Hand is among Allison Dickson's ten thrillers featuring a dance of girlfriends and deception and Carl Vonderau's nine notable moral compromises in crime fiction.
--Marshal Zeringue
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