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Workplace Mysteries and Thrillers
278 Plays1 year ago
What happens when a day at the office goes wrong? In today's episode, Brook and Sarah discuss workplace mysteries and thrillers.
Mentioned
"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Feather" (1845) Edgar Allan Poe
Murder Must Advertise (1933) Dorothy L. Sayers
Murder Must Advertise (1979) BBC Radio Adaptation by Alistair Beaton
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959) Agatha Christie
The Firm (1991) John Grisham
The Showrunner (2018) Kim Moritsugu
The Maid (2022) Nita Prose
The Machinist (2004)
The Circle (2014) Dave Eggars
The Every (2021) Dave Eggars
The Coworker (2023) Freida McFadden
The Net (1995)
One by One (2020) Ruth Ware
Dublin Murder Squad series (2007-2016) Tana French
The Other Black Girl (2021) Zakia Delila Harris
The Other Black Girl (2023) Apple TV
Red Collar Podcast (2020-2021) Catherine Townsend
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction to Workplace Thrillers
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. I'm really ready for today's topic. Well, that's good to hear. Uh, today we are going to be talking about workplace thrillers, which, you know, sometimes people are not that excited to get up and go to work. I will start us off with just a really brief introduction.
00:00:38
Speaker
Work is a near universal, unavoidable experience. And even if you've only spent a short time working, you've probably spent at least a moment or two being frustrated, whether it's by a client, a colleague stealing your lunch from the office kitchen, or what feels like a pointless task.
00:00:55
Speaker
Luckily, there are workplace thrillers that we can turn to, rather than acting on any of those frustrations. And the workplaces that authors invite us into are often so toxic, if not outright deadly, that our workplace frustration seems pretty minor in comparison.
Historical Roots of Workplace Mysteries
00:01:11
Speaker
Today, we will talk about mysteries where the workplace plays a starring role. Although it's not generally billed as a workplace thriller, Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather, describes a terrifying work environment that has serious consequences for the employees.
00:01:27
Speaker
A few early mysteries featuring murders at a workplace are Dorothy L. Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, which was published in 1933, and Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons, which was published in 1959. There may be some other examples, but even looking at other works by Christie and Sayers, most of their books are in more social rather than in professional settings. The first workplace thriller that I read is The Firm, which was written by John Grisham and published in 1991.
00:01:57
Speaker
In it, the main character starts working at a law firm that hides some very dark secrets.
00:02:03
Speaker
Since then, I've read a few others, but to be honest, I struggled to find many examples of workplace thrillers and mysteries for today's episode, other than the handful of books that I've read. I'm sure there's others out there, but there didn't seem to be as many as some of the other subgenres that we've
Why So Few Workplace Thrillers?
00:02:18
Speaker
discussed. And maybe, Brooke, that's where we can start. Do you think that despite the fact that nearly everyone works in some capacity at some point in their lives, audiences don't really want to read about work?
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, that could be the case. Thanks for the summary, Sarah. That was great. And like you say, a lot of times we have the Sunday blues because we don't want to get up and go to work. So maybe that is part of why, because I agree there aren't as many examples. The ones that we have are often very, very good and draw on the same psychology, I think, as domestic thrillers.
00:02:56
Speaker
for exactly the reasons you say, we've all been there. But I see what you're saying that there haven't been as many written. And I mean, I agree with you, Brooke. I would kind of categorize them along with domestic thrillers. But rather than a blood family, it's your work family. And there can be some weird dynamics because, like family, you're spending time with people who you might not ordinarily choose to associate with.
00:03:20
Speaker
But unlike family, you have to spend time with them if you want to get paid. So there's some obvious tension that can be built into a workplace thriller. And I would agree with you, the ones that I've read I thought were very, very good. But I was surprised that there just didn't seem to be a whole bunch of others out there.
Workplace vs Domestic Thrillers
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like it's a goldmine of opportunity because you do have that closeness, just like a family. As they say, we spend more time with the people that we work with than our actual biological families. And so you're going to have those layers of secrets. You're going to have the conflicts that you have anytime you put a group of people together.
00:04:07
Speaker
And I loved in your summary that you're like, no matter how much you love your job, you felt some level of frustration at work. We all have. And I think we've all experienced some kind of
00:04:22
Speaker
strife or even trauma at some point. I mean, hopefully not to the level of harassment or racism like we see in these workplace thrillers, but certainly you've gotten frustrated at some sort of favoritism that happens in your workplace or the grouchy boss, or there's that coworker that no matter how hard you try, the two of you just are like oil and water and you don't like them and they probably don't like you.
Variety in Workplace Settings
00:04:52
Speaker
We've all had those situations and so I think that it makes this subcategory so accessible in the same way that domestic thrillers are because I can't imagine what it's like being a fighter pilot, but I definitely know what it's like to be an office worker.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. And I will say the kind of the workplace thrillers that I've read cover a whole variety of workplaces. Like they're not just all offices or different types of work environments. So I read a book called The Showrunner by Kim Moritsugu.
00:05:35
Speaker
which is a bit of a slow burn, but it's two colleagues who have started a business together but end up despising each other and going to great lengths to end their working relationship. And towards the end, it's kind of like, well, that's one way to do it.
00:05:58
Speaker
But the firm is in a law environment. And there are others. Dorothy Elsayer's book is in an advertising agency. The Christie book that I mentioned, Cat Among the Pigeons, is at a prestigious girls' school. So there's a whole variety of others. I think a couple of years ago, a book
00:06:26
Speaker
I don't know if I would say it was definitely a workplace mystery called The Maid, where it takes place in a high-end hotel. And you kind of get a sense of what someone who's working as a cleaner in one of those hotels, what her daily tasks are. And then she gets caught up in this investigation when a guest dies there.
00:06:54
Speaker
I like that too. I like the different glimpses that you get into different industries or different kinds of organizations. You see maybe the side of it that you didn't know existed, some of the politics that are within that type of work. There can also be blue collar examples. A film that came to my mind this week was The Machinist.
00:07:18
Speaker
which is like a 2004 film starring Christian Bale. And this is the second time I've mentioned a Christian Bale movie in about three episodes, so I'm revealing a favorite. But, you know, this thriller, psychological workplace thriller is set in, obviously he's a machinist, so more of a factory, very gritty blue collar scenario, but we have the same
00:07:43
Speaker
conflicts with the coworkers, this big question of what's going on. This story in particular, if you haven't seen it, is actually told in reverse. You figure out later on and the clues drop in very, very mysteriously. But it's a great example of a workplace thriller that we get from that blue collar end of things.
00:08:07
Speaker
That's great. I actually haven't. I don't think I've seen that. I don't think I'm as big of a Christian Bale fan as you are.
00:08:18
Speaker
You also mentioned the Dorothy L. Sayers Murder Must Advertise, which is one of my reads from this week. Or rather, I should say, listens. I listened to a radio adaptation that was done in the late 70s and it was simply delightful. It was so great. As you say, Dorothy L. Sayers sets this in PIMS publicity and
00:08:41
Speaker
I love the fact that Dorothy L. Sayers was also an advertising copywriter. So she has a very knowledgeable place to write the story from and she could make it just a lot of fun. Her mysteries are infused with a lot of humor, whether it's humor in the scenarios or the actual characters are kind of cards and say funny things. So I just always really enjoy her mysteries.
00:09:08
Speaker
this one was the same way. And it was sort of poking fun at the idea of a mystery happening in a office setting. You know, at one point, there's a corpse on the conference table. And you know, you just had to kind of get a chuckle from that. But it was a great early example of a workplace thriller. And I thought it was really well done.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, I've read that as well. And I actually read something about that. It's one of her least favorite books that she wrote.
00:09:41
Speaker
I saw an interview from her around that time and that she was kind of frustrated during the writing of it because it wasn't what she wanted to be working on at the time or something along those lines. So yeah, I found that interesting as well because I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed the little ways she infused, you know, there's even some jingles in it that were apparently spin-offs of
00:10:03
Speaker
jingles that she had written for advertising campaigns. Another kind of office-based thriller that I read and this was a while ago is The Circle by Dave Eggers. And so this is a social media company and the main character becomes very sucked into kind of the corporate culture of this organization and it
00:10:25
Speaker
It's pretty dark. What I didn't realize is there was actually a sequel that was published in 2021 titled The Every. So I think I might check that out and kind of see. I might have to go back and read the circle because I read it probably nine or ten years ago. I think it came out in 2013.
00:10:49
Speaker
So I might have to reread that and then read the every and see what's changed.
Impact of Remote Work on Thrillers
00:10:55
Speaker
I think, you know, certainly a lot has changed in terms of how we use social media in the last decade. But and so that may be something that comes through in this in the sequel.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah. How interesting the world has changed dramatically in that category overall, but in that category, especially in 10 years. So, uh, kind of a challenge to take on a new or a sequel, I should say, um, in that, uh, social media topic.
00:11:26
Speaker
Another book that I read to prepare for today was The Coworker. This is the brand new Frieda McFadden book. It came out in August, 2023. And although I don't know that it was one of my favorite reads from lately, I love the tagline because I think that it encapsulates this subgenre so well. The tagline is, you see her every day, but do you really know her? And that's the crux of it, right?
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, I was just kind of reflecting on my own work experience and maybe this is just because we're no longer going into the office. We're almost exclusively working from home. But I do feel like there's some
00:12:14
Speaker
I'm missing out on that knowing my colleagues in a different way because we have meetings and we talk and we talk every day, but we don't get a lot of that little snippets of people's lives that you might get if you bump into them when you're getting a coffee from the lunchroom or whatever.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah, the human part of work because it does fulfill a big part of our lives. As I said at the beginning, we spend generally more time with those people than our own family. I know for myself, my coworkers fulfilled a lot of my social
00:12:55
Speaker
life, especially as a young married person. My husband and I were both very busy in our jobs and that was a really big part of my life. Many of my friends came from that circle. So I imagine these days with so many people working remotely, that has really changed.
00:13:12
Speaker
the landscape of the workplace, but you're less likely to get involved in a murder mystery if you're only visiting on screen. Exactly. But so this just reminds me, Brooke, of a movie by Sandra Bullock, I think from the 1990s. And I had to look it up called The Net. And this is where she's a remote worker well before
00:13:37
Speaker
This was a common thing. But she gets wrapped up into something involving her coworkers. If I remember that film correctly, it's been several years since I've seen it.
00:13:53
Speaker
Right, because she has information to so much data and she somehow learns. So I guess my theory should stand corrected. In our world of being so digitally connected, you really could learn something that starts a whole workplace thriller remotely.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, and it would be interesting to see when now where working remotely is so prevalent, you know, what might that look like, right?
00:14:28
Speaker
I see a large opportunity for someone to take this topic and write a workplace thriller about a group of remote workers. And speaking of taking the workers outside of the workplace, I think that Ruth Ware does this really nicely in her novel One by One because this is a corporate retreat.
00:14:48
Speaker
So eight coworkers are, um, their, their company is leveling up. They're about to go public. And so they want to kind of celebrate and mastermind together. And they're going off to this winter ski chalet. It's supposed to be this posh vacation setting, but somebody's there that they can't trust. And it's, it's a great workplace thriller, but offsite.
00:15:13
Speaker
Oh, I like that. So I haven't read that, but I think it sounds like it really plays on the theme of feeling trapped if they're in a remote location. And I think as a worker, you can often feel trapped because you've got to do this job so that you can pay the rent or pay your mortgage or eat.
00:15:39
Speaker
It may not be the job that you want to do. You may not be working with people that you really want to be working with. And so that feeling of being trapped, even if you're not actually trapped in a snowbound resort. Yeah, it sounds like she's she's playing with that theme.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great metaphor for that. And I also remember feeling a very familiar feeling of, you know what it's like when these are your coworkers that you're used to being in your office space setting or whatever industry you're in. But then if you had to have a barbecue at one of their houses, for instance, it just feels weird to be outside of the
00:16:24
Speaker
appropriate setting with this group of people and no one really knows how to act or interact. I remember feeling that when I was reading the book like, yeah, it's awkward because now you're on vacation sort of with these people and it was uncomfortable right from the start. It's a great one.
00:16:42
Speaker
Well and that sounds like there's some good opportunities to explore as well because I've been on work trips like where it was a whole company retreat and yeah it can be particularly if you're not the most outgoing person that can be a pretty uncomfortable
Police Precincts as Thrilling Workplaces
00:16:58
Speaker
situation. And I'm reminded of, I went to a, to a spa. And there were a bunch of colleagues that were there, not my colleagues, but like this work group that had gone together to this spa. And I thought, God,
00:17:16
Speaker
I'm not sure that that's the environment that I want to be with my colleagues in. I thought it was a really interesting choice, but again, a pretty good setup for a thriller, for a workplace mystery. A great setup. Absolutely.
00:17:38
Speaker
And so Brooke, do you think that there's a type of workplace that lends itself really well to this kind of book? I definitely think the leaning towards the legal, you know, that what John Grisham does, for instance, works really well because it just fits in nicely with a mystery. And I was also reminded this week of the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French.
00:18:06
Speaker
And so this is putting the workplace as the police precinct. And so maybe think of it a little bit like watching law and order. So you're really inside the workplace of the cops and the attorneys that are investigating the case. So more than a police procedural, I do feel like that they are more interpersonal, like those thrillers.
00:18:36
Speaker
And something she does that is just really clever is that these are a series of standalones. They're six. I think they came out over a span of about 10 years. But each one of them is told from a different point of view character, so a different homicide investigator or a police officer.
00:18:53
Speaker
But of course, they all work in the same precinct and so there's crossovers and you start to learn what's going on in this person's head about that person. As you read each one, it just fills in the world. They're really fascinating. There's some love affairs that come and go and then these people still have to work together.
00:19:16
Speaker
So I think that is another oddly great place for a workplace thriller is actually the police precinct itself.
00:19:25
Speaker
So that sounds like a great series. I haven't read it. Ton of French is another one of those authors that I know I probably should have read something by, and I just haven't.
Reality and Fiction: Authors' Personal Experiences
00:19:36
Speaker
So I will correct that. But yeah, I mean, I don't know that every police procedural would fall under that category of being a workplace thriller, because sometimes there's just not that.
00:19:52
Speaker
interact as much interaction with the, with the colleagues. So it probably depends on the story. Absolutely. And the author and the way she tells the story. Yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
So Sarah, I really like, as I said earlier, these titles where the author actually has some background in the industry, Dorothy Sayers and the ad agency, John Grisham Law. So jumping off from that, if you were going to write a workplace thriller, where would you set yours? Ooh.
00:20:26
Speaker
I don't know. I have been pretty fortunate in that I have not had terrible work experiences, so I'm not sure that I would have to really think about how I would base it on my own experiences.
00:20:41
Speaker
But there are a couple of examples of real-life workplace thrillers. I was reminded of a story that I read where a colleague had been poisoning another colleague's water bottle.
00:20:58
Speaker
because they were frustrated and this, you know, this is real life. Right. Um, so I, I Googled, you know, uh, colleague poison water bottle and a couple of stories came up, you know, one happening in Canada, one happening in the U S and I'm sure there's others. So I, that premise of poisoning someone's water bottle, that may be something that I would use if I was, um, writing a workplace thriller.
00:21:24
Speaker
Fascinating. Terrifying and fascinating. No kidding. So those people need to have read some of these workplace thrillers rather than acting out their own frustrations.
Potential Thriller Settings from Real Work Experiences
00:21:37
Speaker
Awesome. Well, um, if I were forced to use one of my previous work life experiences to write a workplace thriller, that means that I would be setting it either in state government, which I think is ripe for the picking or a Dairy Queen ice cream shop. So I don't know how scary that would be, but first job to one of my later jobs, those would be the options.
00:22:04
Speaker
I'm with you. I like the, uh, there's some kind of truth that comes through when an author writes about what they know. And I know we've, we've talked about this in the past. Um, there was a book called the other black girl that came out in 2021 by Zakia Delilah Harris.
00:22:21
Speaker
And it's set in the publishing industry. And that was where she had worked before, or maybe as she was writing this book, she was, you know, so she was very familiar, familiar with it. And there's actually a series that I think it's on.
00:22:39
Speaker
It might be on Disney in Canada, Disney Plus. So maybe it's on Hulu in the US, by the same name, The Other Black Girl. I've been watching some of it. I haven't finished the
True Crime Inspirations
00:22:52
Speaker
whole series. It does seem to diverge a little bit from what I remember from the book, but still really good. And yeah, some weird things happening in this workplace. So we try and figure it out with the character, which is always fun.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yes, that one's on my list because when you couple the publishing agency with a mystery, then, you know, I'm in. That sounds really good. It's definitely on my list. And I wanted to share with our listeners a true crime podcast. If you're interested in these workplace thriller stories, it's called Red Collar.
00:23:32
Speaker
I'll just read the description so you can get a feel for it. When we think of white collar criminals, we picture a CEO getting caught up in the latest financial scandal, but there's a subgroup within these seemingly nonviolent offenders who are never discussed in mainstream media, the white collar criminals who kill.
00:23:50
Speaker
Katherine Townsend is the host of this, and she describes these cases. I was thinking about the poison water bottle, Sarah, where these are definitely white collar criminals. They're embezzling money, or they're stealing another co-worker's clients, or they're doing these things that are, yes, illegal, but nonviolent.
00:24:10
Speaker
But when pushed to the brink, and basically it's usually because they're going to be found out and their reputation or their job is on the line, they turn violent. So these are true stories, darker and grimmer than fictional workplace thrillers, so keep that in mind.
00:24:30
Speaker
fascinating stories.
Conclusion and Podcast Credits
00:24:32
Speaker
And I will say if you're a fiction author, there is a lot of food for thought in these and definitely will come away with the feeling of truth is stranger than fiction. Oh, that's a great recommendation, Brooke. Well, Brooke, thanks for this conversation today talking about workplace thrillers.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yes, thank you, Sarah. It was great. And we both put a couple new ideas on our to listen and to read lists. And thank you everyone for listening to Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:25:07
Speaker
Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery.com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.