Hench: A Novel

by Natalie Zina Walschots

“This book is fast, furious, compelling, and angry as hell." -- Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author

The Boys meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this smart, imaginative, and evocative novel of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption, told with razor-sharp wit and affection, in which a young woman discovers the greatest superpower—for good or ill—is a properly executed spreadsheet.

Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?

 As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured.  And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.

So, of course, then she gets laid off.

With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.

Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing.  And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.

It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.

A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. 

• ISBN10: 0062978578
• ISBN13: 9780062978578
• Publish Date: 29 October 2020 (first published 22 September 2020)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 30 May 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: WilliamMr
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

I handed the ARC to my husband because it was about superheroes or that kind of world at least and he's always looking for books that fit those tropes.  Fifty pages in he said, "You have to read this. Anna is you."

And he's right, Anna is me except she uses her spreadsheet powers for evil instead of good.

This book is so well done and turns the superhero trope on its head. It event messes with our views that the best superheroes and villains are male. The men don't fair well in this book.

It's a wonderful book that could be read for the pure enjoyment of a different kind of superhero/villain book or you could read deeper and discuss health care and police brutality. This book hits on all levels and on all cylinders and I don't need a spreadsheet to prove it.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.