Kate’s Review: “The Herd”

Book: “The Herd” by Andrea Bartz

Publishing Info: Ballantine Books, March 2020

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

Book Description: The name of the elite, women-only coworking space stretches across the wall behind the check-in desk: THE HERD, the H-E-R always in purple. In-the-know New Yorkers crawl over each other to apply for membership to this community that prides itself on mentorship and empowerment. Among the hopefuls is Katie Bradley, who’s just returned from the Midwest after a stint of book research blew up in her face. Luckily, Katie has an in, thanks to her sister Hana, an original Herder and the best friend of Eleanor Walsh, its charismatic founder.

As head of PR, Hana is working around the clock in preparation for a huge announcement from Eleanor—one that would change the trajectory of The Herd forever.

Then, on the night of the glitzy Herd news conference, Eleanor vanishes without a trace. Everybody has a theory about what made Eleanor run, but when the police suggest foul play, everyone is a suspect.

Review: I really do like the idea of intersectional feminist spaces in which any person identifying as female can be a part of it, and therein have a support system at work that may feel less intimidating. But at the same time, that concept is rich for conflict, at least in the mind of someone who likes to read soapy thrillers. So it’s a logical conclusion that I would be drawn to “The Herd” by Andrea Bartz, a book about a pro-feminist work space whose founder goes missing right before a huge publicity move, and the women around her who may have secrets. I went in hoping for a fun and easy read, and I am pleased to announce that “The Herd” delivers.

This book is told through two perspectives. The first is of Katie, a journalist and burgeoning author who has just returned from an exhausting and disastrous assignment in her home state of Michigan. She connects with her sister Hana, who is the publicist for Eleanor Walsh the founder of a pro-feminist and woman identified only work space called The Herd. The other perspective is Hana’s, who has worked hard to get where she is and wants The Herd to succeed for her own benefit as well as Eleanor’s. Both women have their own secrets and baggage that are weighing them down, secrets that they are keeping from each other. Katie wants to join The Herd, but has ulterior motives in doing so. Hana is trying to keep the big reveal of the big publicity reveal together. Meanwhile, someone has been vandalizing the inside of the offices with misogynistic language, and then when Eleanor disappears things just get murkier. Katie and Hana, along with other founder Mikki, come together to try to find their fearless leader, but it turns out that Eleanor has secrets of her own. The mystery of what happened to Eleanor slowly unfolds through Katie and Hana’s eyes, and overall I thought that it was a well plotted out puzzle. I was taken along by the twists and turns, and as the list of potential outcomes and potential suspects grew the more muddled, in a good way, it became. And by the time we were getting to the climax, I had a hard time putting it down, staying up far too late to finish it.

But it was the relationship between Katie and Hana that made this story stand out from other thriller mysteries that have similar themes. You slowly learn that their sisterly relationship is filled with tension and angst, as Katie was a biological miracle child and Hana was the adopted, and then neglected, one. Hana resents that Katie has an effortless and non-dramatic relationship with their mother, who is dying of cancer, while Katie resents that Hana has well connected and close friends like Eleanor and Mikki. Their resentments felt real and relatable, and Bartz brings in the complications that trans-racial adoptees can sometimes feel towards their adopted families. Bartz probably didn’t examine this as deeply as she could have, but there were other mentions of how Hana always felt like an outsider or an Other, not only at home but even in her tight knit group of friends while at Harvard and while they were in charge of an intersectional and feminist company. There are also closer looks taken at whether or not capitalistic interests and actual social justice, be it through gendered or racial lenses, can actually coexist in a company like The Herd. After all, Eleanor might have taken some steps to get to the position of a feminist leader that would go against various things that she supposedly stood for, all in pursuit of a corporate dream. And while it’s pointed out that women may be more scrutinized than men for such things, ultimately the question of whether that justifies anything is raised.

“The Herd” is a fun thriller that will be a great way to pass the time this summer. It has a little bit more bite than I was expecting, and it should be on the lists of fans of women-centric thrillers.

Rating 8: An addictive and soapy thriller mystery, “The Herd” has claws and they hooked right into me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Herd” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery & Thriller 2020”.

Find “The Herd” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!