There are a lot of plots that involve money. Often it’s simple greed, such as characters who are driven to murder for financial gain. Sometimes it’s desperation, such as a story in which frantic parents need to fund their child’s medical bills. Others involve characters who take a well-paid job without realizing that the extra cash comes with strings attached.
There are good reasons for financial incentive plots. The urgency of making monthly rent creates its own tension, and the dream of a better life through dumb luck is irresistible to many readers. There is a dark side to these situations, though, as naive women get embroiled in scenarios beyond their control, making the original motivation seem ill-advised by the end.
Here are three books where money creates mayhem.
Sarah Larsen is the proverbial naif in the city. Living in a three-hundred square foot apartment and working in a restaurant with her fiancé Jonathan, she comes across a notice for an Upper West Side family that is looking for a nanny. The reader knows that something has gone awry in the prologue, when the previous nanny witnessed something terrible on her last day.
But, like most people struggling to keep a (tiny) roof over their head, Sarah can’t resist the possibility of a pay bump. She soon realizes the job was too good to be true. She has been hired to play along with a family secret.
Unable to resist another financial offer of free rent, Sarah finds herself in too deep.
The author does a good job of kicking the tension up bit by bit until you can’t stop the pages from turning. Will Sarah escape or merge into this creepy group?
2.
Jessica is a freelance make-up artist, traveling by subway from job to job with her tackle box of cosmetics. Needing cash, Jessica overhears a new client canceling a $500 case study appointment. Expecting a marketing research gig, she shows up at the NYU building in the hopes that no one will notice the mistake. She finds herself in an empty room with a computer. A curser prompt begins asking her questions, and she continues with it, even after the inquiries become increasingly intrusive.
After meeting a promising man outside a coffee shop, Jessica’s life seems to be looking up. However, the person behind the prompt won’t let up, and eventually wants to meet her. She is a therapist named Dr. Shields and we slowly get the sense her interest in Jessica is not purely professional.
This is one of those shout at the screen movie moments, when the reader wants Jessica to get away from this woman or suffer at her own peril. You wouldn’t have much a plot if Jessica were prudent. By the end, the initial $500 has transformed her in surprising ways.
3.
When her mother’s terminal cancer gets worse, Nina is desperate to help her. Looking at six-figure medical bills she can’t pay, Nina has the idea to travel to Lake Tahoe, where she once lived, to befriend the sister of an old boyfriend. Vanessa is an Instagram influencer whose brother is now institutionalized. She spends her days cataloguing a false social media image and is lonely for company. Enter Nina, who rents a guesthouse on her property.
Nina’s real goal is a million dollars cash in the family safe. She bonds with Vanessa with the ulterior motive of getting the lay of the land so she can break in and take the money. The plan is complicated when an Irish guy named Lachlan turns up. Vanessa doesn’t know that this is Nina’s boyfriend and partner in crime.
I liked the initial set-up of this book, including the LA and Tahoe details. However, I was stopped cold by the idiocy of the idea that Nina felt certain she could get into the safe because she remembers the password. It never occurs to her that it may have been changed in twenty years, or that the money may have been spent. There is a satisfying twist at the end, but it comes after too many unnecessary scenes. I especially hated Lachlan, whose every other line is, “I have an idea, yeah?” or “That’s a good plan, yeah?” I began to think of him as Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by the end.
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