false 10595574 186838 280254 0385516290 9780385516297 239 89 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173381511m/280254.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/280254.The_Exception_A_Novel 163050 3.70 271 95 4 1 false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 17 18:43:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 20 07:56:18 -0800 2007
At the Copenhagen office of the genocide research center, Iben and Malene, best friends, each receives an anonymous email death threat that they initially assume was sent by a Serbian war criminal they have published about. When the director's secretary also gets one, but not the much despised secretary, Anne-Lise, Iben and Malene begin to suspect that Anne-Lise is out to seek revenge for their teasing and ostracism.

Told alternately from the perspectives of the four women in the office, the story is both weighty and taut, with the reader becoming drawn into the increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic intimacy among them. Anyone who has ever worked in an office will recognize the way tiny gestures take on intense meaning in those confines. Even at the story's climax, when things become a little more standard-thriller, the truth can still go in a number of directions.]]>