Eight thrillers about women in a hostile workplace

Lisa Levy is a columnist and contributing editor at LitHub and CrimeReads. She is the former EIC of crime fiction site The Life Sentence and the former Mystery/Noir editor at the LA Review of Books.

At CrimeReads Levy tagged eight thrillers focused on women in the workplace, including:

Renee Knight, The Secretary (Harper Collins)

Christine Butcher is the secretary of the title. She works as a high-powered assistant to supermarket heiress Mina Appleton, who is also a TV host and media personality. It’s a fruitful relationship for twenty-plus years, with Mina giving orders and Christine eagerly doing everything to smooth out Mina’s life. But when Mina is accused of wrongdoing, Christine is forced from the background into the public eye, since Christine must have known about, if not participated in, Mina’s malfeasance. This is one of those books that gives what would have been a minor player the role of protagonist, with excellent results.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Secretary.

--Marshal Zeringue