Working Stiffs

by Simon Wood

Description

The workplace is a dangerous place. The unscrupulous are primed and ready to take advantage of the innocent and naïve. A slight indiscretion can cost the employee everything. A new position can turn a person into someone they are not. Those at the top can be toppled and those at the bottom can be crushed.Until now, Vincent's father has kept one side of the business a secret from his son. Vincent is about to learn the family business. On the most important day of his career, Sam's world will show more unravel when he helps a woman in distress. Todd has failed in every job he's undertaken, but that changes when he backs into a drug dealer's car. Now he's in hock with organized crime and can only get himself out from under if he works for them to pay off his debt. Kenneth Casper is ailing and so is his business empire. His shareholders circle like vultures. Casper pins all his hopes on a Peruvian shaman with a miracle cure.Working Stiffs...Some jobs are worth killing for.The book features My Father... show less

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infogirl2k 99 reviews

The workplace can be dangerous, despite any regulations enacted to keep it safe. Those dangers come from people – greedy, unscrupulous people who can make it hard on those who aren't. Hidden behind a person's disarming smile and handshake, all sorts of devious thoughts can be lurking.

Simon Wood explores this theme in WORKING STIFFS, an anthology that manages not only to keep readers on the edge of their seats, but does so with stylish and clever prose.

The collection is comprised of six short stories and a longer story called "The Fall Guy" that's basically a short novella. One that takes the reader on quite the trip.

The short stories cover different aspects of the theme. The protagonists range from people like the business owner show more taking drastic steps to hold onto his company in "The Real Deal" to the beat cop whose reputation is compromised when a street punk shoots him with his own weapon in "Officer Down" to average Joes placed in circumstances in which events spin out of control, such as the adman in the story "A Break in the Old Routine".

Despite Wood's propensity for wry humor (as evidenced by the delightfully bad pun of the book title), he paints a bleak picture about the dark side of human character. Even a successful crime author isn't immune to succumbing to temptation when a former object of his affections comes into the picture in "Old Flames Burn the Brightest". And the notion that, not only do nice guys finish last, but really horrible ones thrive is evident in "Parental Control".

To read the entire review, see: http://thriller-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review-of-working-stiffs show less

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