I would like to thank Pan Macmillan and Anne from Random Things Tours for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Published – Out Now

Publisher – Pan Macmillan

Price – £14.99 hardback £2.99 Kindle eBook

It’s five p.m. on a Friday.

You have been called to an interview for your dream job.

In a stunning office 13 floors above the city below, you are all alone with the man interviewing you.

Everyone else has gone home for the weekend.

The interview gets more and more disturbing.

You’re feeling scared.

Your only way out is to answer a seemingly impossible question.

If you can’t...what happens next?

I don’t know about you, but I hate job interviews. Having to be perky, create amazing enthusiastic answers and selling yourself. Bleurgh my introvert nature is in revolt. For me and many others a job interview feels more like an interrogation. But imagine if the interview you were in really became one. This is the concept behind C M Ewan’s tense and nightmarish The Interview.

Kate is ready to push your boundaries and get the job of her dreams at a high-flying marketing company. After a few nightmarish years this feels the next step in her life. Her recruitment agent has got her an interview at Edge Communications; well known for its play hard work hard culture; its desire to push the boundaries and its deluxe hi-tech shining office block The Mirror in the heart of London. Its Friday afternoon and Kate is introduced to the suave, sharp, and enigmatic Joel. They enter a work cube; and the questions commence; questions that feel intrusive into all aspects of Kate’s life. Joel knows Kate has secrets and will do anything to find them while Kate realises that everyone else on the floor has left and now the interview is just the pair of them alone.

This was a hugely enjoyable thriller and Ewan uses the hook of the tension everyone feels about an interview to get a great bond immediately with Kate who is our primary narrator. The nerves: the worry what someone will think of your answers or your CV’s embellishments and then that sinking feeling that this interview is getting sinister fast. We soon feel Kate’s rising nerves turn into terror as we realise this interview is really a trap and we cannot understand why. A deluxe office floor alone can be quite sinister, and Ewan presses these buttons well. The interplay with Joel who is the kind of person who appears to read your thoughts as they cross your face is unnerving – is he just a creep or has he got a personal agenda of his own at stake? Ewan interestingly often allows us into Joel’s perspective, and we find sees someone calculating, ruthless and yet self-doubting so we aren’t sure if this is a killer and his prey or something else. This mystery really keeps the heart of the story all the way through to the bitter end.

I really liked Kate as a main character. What stands out is her ability to bounce back and be resilient. We see someone who stands up to Joel; while not his equal in these situations she does surprise him and that tenacity and ability to improvise her attempts to escape Joel are smart and inventive making her more than just a damsel in distress. How would you escape form a locked office prison is an intriguing puzzle to solve too! Ewan also slowly fills in Kate’s backstory and we see someone who is not just eager for a big job but also rebuilding her life after immense pain. Readers should quickly find themselves cheering her on and also very worried for her safety.

My one reservation is after all the full throttle twists and turns the finale of the story does feel a little slower in order to to get everything neatly wrapped up; when I am not sure we couldn’t have had a little more ambiguity and still delivered a punchy ending to rival all the other parts of the story. But ultimately, I really enjoyed the ride this story provided even if the final landing felt more bumpier than I was expecting. The Interview is a well-designed and polished trap that readers will gladly put their hands on for some thrills and spills as we try to work out what is going on. A lot of fun!