A comedic thriller about an office worker who’s determined to kill her insufferable coworker, only to discover he might be an infamous murderer himself.

THE MOUSE
by Amy Talley
Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s, January 2028

Margaret Ingraham is an introverted, hyper-meticulous thirty-year-old administrative assistant who wants nothing more than to be left in peace. But when the office golden boy, Patrick McMahon, targets her job for AI replacement, then steals her apple slice, something inside Margaret snaps. She makes a calculated decision: Patrick must die.

Margaret’s initial murder attempts—such as leaving a peanut butter muffin on her desk for the allegedly-allergic Patrick to find—are unsuccessful, but as she zeroes in on her target, she begins to notice some suspicious behavior. Soon, she realizes that, beyond being a public nuisance, Patrick might just be the Silver Lake Strangler, a serial killer who has been menacing local women.

Unfortunately, Margaret can’t go to the police. With a past tainted by a mother who cried wolf and Margaret’s own failed homicide attempts, she’s anything but a reliable witness. Instead, she engages Patrick in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, using anonymity and her underestimated persona to out-maneuver a killer. Margaret must risk her safety, her sanity, and the emotional stability she’s fought so hard for to stop the murderer and maybe, for the first time in her life, become the hero of her own story.

“Deftly plotted and deliciously unpredictable, THE MOUSE is everything you want in a thriller. This one is a wild ride from start to finish!”—Ashley Elston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of First Lie Wins

Amy Talley is a USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels (under the name Liz Talley). She has been nominated for both RWA’s Golden Heart and Rita awards. She has had three novels in the Amazon First Reads program and two Amazon “Best Books of the Month” in Romance. Amy is a member of The Author’s Guild, Novelists Inc, and Your Book Escape.