You’ve herd it all before
Soapy novel is gloss and lipstick without imaginative depth
The Herd Andrea Bartz Ballantine Overnight, the phrase “airplane novel” sounds like something from a bygone era, given that COVID-19 has rendered air travel itself all but obsolete. Normally, The Herd by Andrea Bartz would be the perfect “airplane novel” for a certain type of mystery reader. Say, a young woman whose taste in mysteries leans toward soap opera-type thrillers of the Big Little Lies variety.
The Herd isn’t as sharply drawn as Liane Moriarty’s bestseller, but rests on the same formula. An insular group of well-groomed women becomes drawn into investigating the murder of one of their own, all the while keeping scandalous personal secrets.
The twisty plot opens at an exclusive “women’s only” workspace in New York called the Herd, where first-time visitor Katie Bradley, a journalist from the Midwest, visits her sister, Hana, a publicist for the Herd.
In wonderment (and in one of the few mildly clever lines), Katie exclaims to her sister, “This place is unreal, Hana. I feel like I’m inside Athena’s vagina.”
Presiding over this womb of a workplace is Eleanor Walsh, a college friend of Hana’s. (A third friend from college, artsy Mikki, also works at the Herd.) Eleanor is a chic post-feminist dynamo, but, as might be expected, Eleanor’s shiny success has attracted some haters, chief among them a misogynist bunch of guys who call themselves the “Antiherd.”
The night before Katie arrives at the Herd, an intruder breaks into the premises and spraypaints an ugly epithet for lady parts in the Gleam Room, the sanctuary where Herd members retire to apply fresh makeup. Then, a few days afterward, just as Eleanor is slated to make a big announcement about development plans for the Herd, she vanishes. Did Eleanor just need to take a self-care break away from the glare of the spotlight, or is her exit permanent?
As is standard in a story like this, the women who constitute Eleanor’s closed circle of gal pals take turns stepping into the role of prime suspect. Why did Katie, who got a big advance to write a book on tech, suddenly abandon that project and turn up in New York, where she was desperate to break into the inner sanctum of the Herd? What’s making laidback boho Mikki so anxious that she’s vaping weed all the time? And, just how resentful is Hana of the way Eleanor has exploited her as the face of diversity for her company promotions? (Katie, white, and Hana, a woman of colour, are sisters by adoption.)
Each member of the trio takes turns narrating and editing events. But, because Katie, Hana and Eleanor are more “concepts” than characters whose voices all sound alike, such a potentially complex narrative structure barely registers.
It’s disappointing that Bartz takes a glossy concept — mayhem in a female-only workspace! — and makes so little of it. The Herd is colourful, but devoid of imaginative depth.