Serial Killer Games

Posey lampoons the soullessness of corporate work in her irresistible debut. It’s November in Canada, and the offices of the unnamed company Dolores dela Cruz works for are “clenched in the white-knuckled death grip of Christmas season hysteria.” Dolores, with her penchant for dressing in black and morbid sense of humor, drags herself to work every day. She perks up when the handsome, mysterious Jake Ripper arrives at her company as an office temp. The two share a deep interest in the crimes of a serial killer known as the Paper Pusher, whose victims have all died from falls off the roofs of downtown office buildings. As the oddball pair develop a budding romance, a major question hangs over their courtship: might Jake be the Paper Pusher? (“Even serial killers get their meet-cute,” Dolores muses.) Posey tells the tale in bright, punchy chapters that alternate between Dolores’s and Jake’s perspectives, and populates their love story with a cast of charming weirdos, including Andrew, Jake’s starry-eyed roommate, and Cynthia, an inflexible HR director. Though the mystery plot mostly serves as window dressing for a macabre romance, Posey keeps things fast and funny enough that readers won’t mind. It’s a wickedly entertaining good time. Agent: Chelsey Emmelhainz, Copps Literary. (Apr.)