Donna Andrews: Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder!

Copyright © 2012 by the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Ever feel like killing your boss?

Me, too.

I write the Dead-End Job mysteries, and I know working for a living is murder. Fortunately, I can take out my job-related frustrations by killing people-on paper. I never counted how many I’ve murdered in my eleven-book crime spree, but most had it coming.

Fiction is my refuge when a job is bleak. And it’s not just my superior who gives me the urge to kill. My fingers have itched to strangle a co-worker. I’ve wanted to leap across the counter to clock a customer. I’ve murdered maddening colleagues, executed overbearing executives, and annihilated annoying customers in my mind. There’s no blood on my hands. No jail time, either. But lots of job satisfaction.

If you’ve had those same feelings, I promise you’ll enjoy This Job Is Murder , the latest collection of short stories in the Chesapeake Crimes series.

The other Chesapeake Chapter Sisters in Crime anthologies have launched careers and showcased award-winning crime fiction writers. I’m predicting the fifth addition in the series will continue that literary tradition.

I like this anthology. I’ve read every story in This Job Is Murder , and there isn’t a dud in the bunch. How do you like your murder: Hard-boiled? Warm and cozy? Fast and funny? Dark and brooding? You’ll find it here. My Chesapeake Chapter brothers and sisters in crime have worked wonders with your favorite mystery subgenres.

David Autry turns in a fast-paced thriller with “Deadrise.” Harriette Sackler delivers a historical tale of revenge with a twist. “Mean Girls,” Donna Andrews’s take on office politics, makes you feel the helpless rage of a hardworking woman forced to work with bootlickers. Cathy Wiley’s meeting planner discovers a body that was definitely not on the agenda in “Miked for Murder.”

Bosses, good and bad, abound. Ever worked for someone who acted as if he was God? Then you’ll appreciate Barb Goffman’s tale of a man on a heavenly mission. Karen Cantwell doles out the death penalty to a spouse-stealing boss.

In This Job Is Murder , even ivory towers are not safe from mayhem. Fans of academic mysteries will enjoy a double dose: “To Adjuncts Everywhere” by Ellen Herbert and Smita Harish Jain’s “An Education in Murder.”

E. B. Davis takes a shot at delivering justice to husbands addicted to the wild life.

And those dream jobs? Some of them turn out to be nightmares. If you have any doubts, read “Keep It Simple” by Shari Randall and “When Duty Calls” by Art Taylor. C. Ellett Logan writes about the chef who cooks up creepy critters. Jill Breslau tells us about a mediator in a lose-lose situation. And Leone Ciporin gives us “A Grain of Truth.”

Working for a living is murder. So is losing your job. Some experts say when a company sacks lots of staff, the survivors aren’t lucky. They’ll have to do the work of their fired colleagues with less money and fewer resources. They’ll work twice as hard to keep those coveted jobs. Their golden handcuffs will turn to lead. And soon they’ll feel the urge to kill. The same way you do.

But you need to relax after a hard day. Fix your favorite drink and curl up with this killer collection of short stories. Let This Job Is Murder work for you.

Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series. Her critically acclaimed Dead-End Job series is a satiric look at a serious subject-the minimum-wage world. Her Fort Lauderdale character, Helen Hawthorne, works a different low-paying job each book. Final Sail , her eleventh Dead-End Job mystery, is set aboard a luxury yacht where Helen Hawthorne works as a stewardess. It debuts in May 2012 as a hardcover and an ebook. Elaine’s second series features St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus. Death on a Platter is the seventh novel. Elaine hosts a weekly half-hour talk show, the “Dead-End Jobs Show,” interviewing people about the extraordinary secrets of ordinary jobs, on Radio Ear Network (radioearnetwork.com). She has won the Agatha, Anthony, and Lefty awards.

“Well, happy birthday to me,” Serena muttered as she pulled into the parking lot of the Dutch Maid Motor Inn. It was her thirty-fifth birthday, but given her current surroundings, it wasn’t going to be her best one.

She cut the headlights and drove slowly to the rear of the shabby, one-story building. In a few months the lot would be jammed with the minivans and compact cars of budget travelers eager to hit nearby Mistucket Beach. But it was off season now, and just a smattering of old sedans and pickup trucks sat in the near-empty lot. Oh yeah, you blend , she thought, staring at the special edition Jag she’d followed into the lot. It stood out from these sullen old cars like a Vegas showgirl at a church picnic.

Serena chewed her bottom lip and scanned the building. A few moments later light outlined a flimsy curtain in a ground-floor unit. She sighed and reached for a cigarette. A decrepit Volvo and a slow-moving police cruiser had gotten between her and the Jag. She’d seen her targets pull into the motel but missed them walking from the car into the building. She’d have to see what opportunities the window offered.

Serena climbed out of her BMW, pulled a black canvas bag from the back seat, and cautiously circled the Jag. She scurried behind a Dumpster, crouched, and deftly assembled her equipment by the erratic light of the neighboring restaurant, its Waffles 24 Hours sign winking like a lecherous old man.

The curtains to room 112 jerked open. Serena froze. Just twenty feet and a sheet of dirty floor-to-ceiling glass separated her from her targets. Jeez, they must get a thrill out of doing it with the curtains open, Serena thought. Well, it makes the job a piece of cake.

Cheesecake, she amended, expertly focusing a tiny video camera on the zaftig blonde in the motel room.

Serena panned the interior of room 112. “Yup, I’m the Cecil B. DeMille of adultery,” she muttered around a smoldering Marlboro, capturing head shots as she had been taught. Establishing identity was the most important thing, her boss, Morty Acerman, said; otherwise it could be any two (or three or four) wandering spouses in there, see? And you need to get the Act Itself, also known as Zero Deniability in Morty-speak.

In the year she had worked for Morty, Serena had learned that it was the details rather than the Act Itself that steamed the spouses who hired Acerman Security to follow their wandering mates. When the husband dropped big money on jewelry and trips and flowers for the Other Woman, that’s what got them mad. Morty said that he hadn’t met the wife in this case but figured she had money; she had sent a hefty retainer through an intermediary.

Serena considered enlivening things with a shot of the voluptuous moon wrapped in a gauzy stole of clouds (traditional romantic imagery juxtaposed with the tawdry reality of the squat cinderblock love nest-once a film major, always a film major), but she came to her senses. Morty had warned her more than once about getting artsy. Keep it simple was Morty’s mantra. She appreciated that he left out the “stupid” for her. At least lighting wouldn’t be a problem. Every lamp in the room was burning; even the television was on. You guys are making this too easy, Serena thought. Amateurs.