Becky's Great Book Reviews Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum

A message to Emma Rosenblum: Please write more "bad" books, as Very Bad Company was almost as delicious as Bad Summer People. I say almost because the former focuses on the antics of the people employed by an AdTech company rather than the average Joe type featured in the latter, which this reader found easier to relate to.

Top executives of tech company Aurora go on a corporate retreat to Miami where a big announcement is expected. CEO John Shiller tells his employees that Aurora will be sold to search giant Minimus and they will all be receiving huge payouts for their shares in the company. We soon learn the secrets that almost all of the Aurora employees are hiding which threaten the reputation and therefore the sale of the company.

Two of Aurora's employees are carrying on a forbidden affair. The head of HR is hiding an unplanned pregnancy. Another is lying about a job offer to try to squeeze a higher salary out of John. Yet another has shamefully trashed her to the other company out of jealousy. The Chief Information Officer is hiding a potentially damaging data breach. And quirky CEO John may be covering up the origin of the algorithm with which Aurora was founded: Was it stolen from he and the other founder's old friend who mysteriously died right before Aurora came to be?

One of the executives on the retreat, Jessica, who had a hand in the start-up of Aurora, is found dead in the restroom of the club they all attended. Was it a drug overdose like it appears or is there something nefarious about it?

Outlandish salaries, big personalities and even bigger egos come together in this perfect setting for betrayals, double crosses, and murder. There are enough positive qualities that shine through each of Rosenblum's vivid and well-drawn characters to make us invested. Emma Rosenblum writes a titillating novel, and this one gets four stars out of five.