The Secretary

When Christine Butcher starts a new job as PA to Mina Appleton, heir to a successful chain of supermarkets, she is an insecure young woman with a husband and young daughter. But she knows what is expected of her in her role. A good secretary should be loyal and discreet. The perfect devoted assistant.

For nearly twenty years, Christine is loyal to Mina, harbouring secrets and doing as Mina bids, even when there is cause to question the ethics of some of Mina’s business decisions. Christine is always willing to put her job first, even at the cost of her family life. But eventually she comes to realise just how high a price she will have to pay to keep Mina Appleton’s secrets. And pushed to the limit, the quiet and loyal servant might just become the most dangerous person in the room.

As someone who works as a PA in the day job, this book’s premise intrigued me from page on. The plot gradually unravels in the form of two timelines – one rooted in the present (where it becomes clear that Christine is in some serious trouble); and one in the past, one that starts with Christine’s first encounter with Mina Appleton, the job interview that Mina quite deliberately chooses to hold in the kitchen of her home. These two threads are carefully spun out, eventually weaving together for the explosive ending. The reader has spent a lot of time in Christine’s head by that point, but every time you get lulled into a false sense of security, confident that you know this character well, something comes at you from an unexpected direction, and the ending genuinely took me by surprise.

This is an utterly gripping book. The characters feel well-rounded and realistic. Most of them are not particularly likeable, once you get to know them, but that only makes them feel more real – most of us in our everyday lives have to deal with people who we find annoying or untrustworthy in some way. Christine, initially quite earnest and naïve, changes as the years go by, to the point that you eventually start to feel you can no longer believe everything she tells you, but by that point you’re so invested in her story you really want to know what happens to her at the end.

THE SECRETARY is an outstanding and expertly written psychological thriller that explores the dangerous line between loyalty and obsession, and the concept that the people we assume we can trust, perhaps are the ones we should fear.