New Thriller Books Find Drama in the Publishing World | Time

Three new novels navigate the thorny interior of the industry. Two are driven more by plot than interrogating real-world problems, yet all are concerned with the motivations of the people behind the stories we read. In Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot, a teacher steals the idea for a book from his dead MFA student. Alexandra Andrews' Who Is Maud Dixon? follows a protagonist, the assistant of a famous novelist, who will do just about anything to get ahead. And in Zakiya Dalila Harris' The Other Black Girl, the sole Black employee at a publishing house finds herself unexpectedly isolated after the hiring of a new Black editorial assistant.