About a week or two ago, I went to the bookstore intending to buy one specific book (in this case, it was Katherine Arden’s The Winter of the Witch, which I have also since completed and is now on my ever-growing list of books to review). As is usually the case for me, and against all my good intentions, I came out carrying a number of books greater than one. One of my unintended purchases was Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes (if that name sounds familiar, it’s because he also sang the song “Escape” aka “The Piña Colada Song”), which I picked up both because of it’s very pretty cover as well as the intriguing nature of the title.
This is a tale from the (fictional) Harbinger Harrow (coolest name ever), Dean of Admissions at the (fictional) McMasters Conservatory, an educational institution which trains its students in the art of “deletions” (the preferred term over “murder”). Set in the 1950s, it chronicles the time there of three particular students: Cliff Iverson, an aeronautics engineer; Gemma Lindley, a healthcare administrator; and Doria Maye, a Hollywood actress. All three have reasons to desire their boss’s imminent demise and therefore have made that their thesis at McMasters.
This was a lot of fun! Despite the bleakness of the subject matter, the writing is quirky and frequently darkly funny. I especially liked the sections set at McMasters, with the various classes and training sessions for the students. The ending section did have some weird pacing issues—Cliff’s proposed “deletion” in particular felt a little overly convoluted, whereas Gemma’s felt like an afterthought.
Overall, this was a good time. The main storylines wrapped up nicely, but there was a bit of a mystery cliffhanger at the end to segue into Vol. 2 (which doesn’t exist yet but is apparently in the works).
