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perednia's review against another edition
4.0
Gwen Farris has a good life and appreciates it. She and her husband have a young daughter, who they consider a miracle baby after Gwen's severe injuries inflicted years earlier. She has a new supervising position in a pharmecuticals company and loves her job. Too bad she gave an honest employee evaluation to the office misfit.
Stephen Tarbell is more than irritated. This young Farris woman came to the company, took the job he deserved and gave him a less than steller job performance review. He's done being walked all over. After all, he's the one who really gets the work done. He's the one who the company should reward. He's the one who will get what he deserves.
And so will his new supervisor.
This is the setup to a brilliant new thriller by Simon Wood, newly nominated by the Crime Writers Association for a short story Dagger award. Tarbell first accosts Gwen Farris in the company parking lot one evening after she's worked late, pulling a knife on her. She reports the incident and a private firm is brought in to investigate, promising they will serve her Tarbell's head on a platter as long as she doesn't go to the police and is quiet. Mustn't cause any bad PR for the company, after all.
Wood employs his excellent descriptive ability to keep the story moving, to explain why Gwen doesn't go to the police for starters. There also are plausible reasons why her employer is willing to take these steps to find out exactly what happened and deal with it in this manner. And there's groundwork laid early for why Gwen is even more rattled by the attack. It's a familiar situation. Those injuries that she recovered from happened when a would-be rapist plunged a knife into her stomach years ago.
Everything works together to keep the pages turning and the action believable, because Wood does such a good job setting everything up. So when the action gets twistier and trickier, the reading adrenaline kicks, past actions are portents to the present and everything comes rushing up to an action-packed climax. That the reader will have to choose between cheering the main character on or urging a different course of action is part of the rush.
A thriller about work place conflict are benign words for what are horrific actions in this case. The story also shows what changes a victim can go through, especially one who has gotten up once and who has a lot to fight for -- and whether the end justifies the means.
Wood adds additional layers with the compelling supporting characters, especially a retired cop whose actions play a pivotal role, and scenes showing Tarbell's life away from the office. The latter add to the creep factor in an affective way, avoiding the overused first-person monologues set italics. And Tarbell's line of thinking after a particularly vile act is especially chilling.
Most terrifingly, TERMINATED shows how easy it is for the person being harassed to not be believed, especially if she stands up for herself.
Stephen Tarbell is more than irritated. This young Farris woman came to the company, took the job he deserved and gave him a less than steller job performance review. He's done being walked all over. After all, he's the one who really gets the work done. He's the one who the company should reward. He's the one who will get what he deserves.
And so will his new supervisor.
This is the setup to a brilliant new thriller by Simon Wood, newly nominated by the Crime Writers Association for a short story Dagger award. Tarbell first accosts Gwen Farris in the company parking lot one evening after she's worked late, pulling a knife on her. She reports the incident and a private firm is brought in to investigate, promising they will serve her Tarbell's head on a platter as long as she doesn't go to the police and is quiet. Mustn't cause any bad PR for the company, after all.
Wood employs his excellent descriptive ability to keep the story moving, to explain why Gwen doesn't go to the police for starters. There also are plausible reasons why her employer is willing to take these steps to find out exactly what happened and deal with it in this manner. And there's groundwork laid early for why Gwen is even more rattled by the attack. It's a familiar situation. Those injuries that she recovered from happened when a would-be rapist plunged a knife into her stomach years ago.
Everything works together to keep the pages turning and the action believable, because Wood does such a good job setting everything up. So when the action gets twistier and trickier, the reading adrenaline kicks, past actions are portents to the present and everything comes rushing up to an action-packed climax. That the reader will have to choose between cheering the main character on or urging a different course of action is part of the rush.
A thriller about work place conflict are benign words for what are horrific actions in this case. The story also shows what changes a victim can go through, especially one who has gotten up once and who has a lot to fight for -- and whether the end justifies the means.
Wood adds additional layers with the compelling supporting characters, especially a retired cop whose actions play a pivotal role, and scenes showing Tarbell's life away from the office. The latter add to the creep factor in an affective way, avoiding the overused first-person monologues set italics. And Tarbell's line of thinking after a particularly vile act is especially chilling.
Most terrifingly, TERMINATED shows how easy it is for the person being harassed to not be believed, especially if she stands up for herself.
glitterandtwang's review against another edition
3.0
It is a testament to how well Simon Wood writes suspense that I finished this book, because it was chock full of typos and grammatical errors and oddities like words missing from sentences. I don't know if that has to do with it being a Kindle book or what, but damn if it wasn't obnoxious.
Plot was a little repetitive and I wished that the 'villain' had any sort of redeeming quality to him. It's too bad, because I quite liked the first book of the author's that I read. I'll probably give him one more go and see if my opinion improves.
Plot was a little repetitive and I wished that the 'villain' had any sort of redeeming quality to him. It's too bad, because I quite liked the first book of the author's that I read. I'll probably give him one more go and see if my opinion improves.
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