Revenge of the Cube Dweller

Revenge of the Cube Dweller by Joanne Fox Phillips. Published by River Grove

June 13, 2014 by cayocosta72 Leave a comment

Life sucks. Once a happily married woman of means, Tanzie Lewis is now a divorced 52 year old woman starting over in the work force. After he husband left her for a young bimbo, Tanzie was forced to take a job working for a moron in the internal audit division of the Bishop Group. Tanzie is no dope, and it doesn’t take long before she realizes someone has been playing fast and loose with company money. As if that weren’t bad enough, cut corners have caused a pipeline explosion that killed innocent citizens of Houston. With an appetite for revenge, Tanzie sets out top make sure the bad guys get what’s coming to them.

LOVED THIS! Women of a “certain age” unite! We are smart, savvy and we aren’t going to take any more of your crap. Tanzie Lewis for president!!

A special thank you to River Grove Books, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joanne Fox Phillips’ REVENGE OF THE CUBE DWELLER, is an engaging tale of one tenacious middle aged woman’s adventure in the corrupt corporate world, a whistleblower uncovering misdeeds of fraud; packed with humor, drama, sass, wit, and delicious revenge!

Tanzie Lewis was living the life of everything Houston glitz and glamour has to offer, as the wife of a successful oil executive, with the highlight of her days—competing in the country club golf championship, or lunching with her rich friends.

When her cheating husband threw her aside for a younger woman and the stock market took a dive, Tanzie was left at age 52, menopausal, and jobless. (minus her beloved dog, and left with a used Lexus, and able to fit all her worldly possessions in said car).

Escaping her friends and former life (of course they now are her husband’s friends with his new wife), she escapes to Tulsa, OK and takes a job in the internal audit department of The Bishop Group, an oil and gas company. She is not on the management team, a nobody, (if you ask her boss), residing in a cube (razor sharp, good at her job, and a plus- a great detective). Taking care of her personal appearance is last on her list, thus weight gain and some lonely nights (with of course the help of nightly cigarettes and wine).

However, she receives an adrenaline rush from uncovering misdeeds and accounting irregularities within the company, with a purpose—as the suspense heats up. She is obsessed with getting to the bottom of the fraud, as she needs to be promoted and accepted to demonstrate her worth; in order to get her life back, while working with these men who are worthless and clueless.

From sneaking into offices after hours and weekends, uncover as housekeeping staff, to snatching computer passwords to privileged information—she uncovers corporate fraud, manipulation, accounting irregularities, and a cover-up! With the lack of security within the company, she manages to worm her way into their nasty company secrets by getting into emails and private conferences. (Loved it!)

After her former friends from Houston are killed in a massive pipeline explosion, due to her employer’s mistakes—she recruits her sidekick sister, Lucy (miss organic and bohemian who wants to save the earth). Tanzie learns to outsmart them all, and wins in her own brilliant way!

Of course, like most whistleblowers (I speak from experience), a company really doesn’t want to hear about the misdeeds, and accounting irregularities, as most of the executives are a part of the cover up, or they decide the brave ones coming forward with such information are labeled-problematic, and ultimately the hero or whistleblower is fired for some other bogus reason. The whistleblower has to gather as much information as possible in order to build a case while they have inside access, before they get caned, harassment begins, or the company begins deleting files, to cover their tracks.

Thank goodness The Bishop Group was a private company, not publicly traded, as I could definitely step in and help Tanzie. I find whistleblowing novels and corporate fraud (fiction or non-fiction), fascinating! I am about the underdog.

Even though this novel was leaning on the humorous side, due to the funky front cover, appealing to a wider audience; however, with a different more mysterious cover, this novel could really be an intense suspense drama and corporate scandalous novel, as has much depth. I for one, love the details as a very analytical thinker.

Joanne Fox Phillips’ is an ideal author for this topic with an intensive background, as the director of internal audit for a midstream oil and gas company in Tulsa, Oklahoma; a CPA, certified internal auditor, and certified fraud examiner—offering great insights into the dynamics and internal tactics of corporate fraud.

I definitely look forward to more scandalous corporate suspense novels in the future from this talented author. Maybe a SOX one next? Highly Recommend!

Give it time. This book may be slow to get going but by the end you are right with Tanzie in her quest to take down her employer. This is a classic "bad guys get what's coming to them."

She has some extra motivation from the beginning. We get a glimpse of what her life was life when married into the rich and famous lifestyle. We are angry on her behalf when she is confronted with not only her past but her replacement. Tanzie's antics may be unethical but they produce positive results. She wades in with caution but remembers her purpose. Oh - the ending makes the book. She has found her place in the world.

Tanzie is an intriguing character that has courage and grit. She has suffered some serious setbacks in life yet rallies. Joanne Fox Phillips has created a gutsy character in Tanzie.

I found the plot interesting, although I would have preferred a bit less backstory and detail about the inner workings of the oil industry. Overall, I would recommend Revenge of the Cube Dweller to anyone who enjoys a strong female character who beats the odds in life.

Life starts at the age of 52, well for Tanzie, that is.Joanne Fox Phillips is one heck of a writer!

Reading this book, I thought of all of the people who have worked hard for a company and then been done dirty by their employers. Tanzie Lewis is working at a family owned corporation after being dumped and divorced. Her new company has a bunch of misogynist bosses who don't appreciate her abilities or intelligence. Tanzie is in her 50's and knows she needs to keep her job so she will just put up with their old boy attitude. However, in the process of trying to prove her capabilities, she discovers damaging information about the company. After a deadly accident which kills good friends of hers, she decides to discover the company's true liability for the accident.

There is a lot of very interesting snooping and computer hacking which occurs in this book and helps Tanzie with her ultimate revenge. Anyone who has worked in a bureaucracy will appreciate some of the ridiculous ways that things are done. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of explanation about office procedure which sometime slows down the pace of the story. Overall, this is a good story about how one person can cause a huge change if they know how to get the right information. It is a nicely done tale of revenge for the common good and maybe a little helping of oneself at the same time.

4 Smart, Timely Stars * * * *

This was not a romance book. Sometimes a little something will catch my eye and call out to me. This tackled being older in today's job market, being replaced for the newer version of the society wife and working in an industry made up of the "old Boys' Mentally"... that it also hit the oil and gas practices of big companies didn't hurt either. This was like the cleansing sherbet course during a gourmet meal for my mind. I had gone through some very heavy reading with my heart ripped wide open recently and this worked perfectly.

The story covers a woman who was smart, educated in finance and became a CPA. She was from a huge Irish/Greek family of 7 siblings and learned to navigate her feelings and life by this experience. She married a client... had the Country Club life with all of the friends... but turned a blind eye to his wanderings... only to have him dump her for the newer fresher model.

She remakes her life as best she can.... taking a low entry level position at one of the largest and most conservative oil companies in Tulsa, owned by two brothers. What happens in the adapting to her place for herself in this new life is the realization of how some big business and executives can be sucked into the vortex of fraud and cover up.
We experience it all with her in real time and the outcome is very engaging.

This had the taste of Watergate intrigue with also the reality base of what it is like to be in the job market after a certain age. It was very well done and well worth the read.

First I would like to thank Net Galley and River Grove Books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed every part of this book! The action started from the beginning and had me coming back for more till the end.

Tanzie Lewis had recently been left and divorced by her rich husband Winston and went from a Country Club life to living pay check to paycheck supporting herself and trying to get her life turned around all at the age of 52!

She not only has been gain weight with her lifestyle upheaval but she can't seem to get her professional in line with her standards of what she thinks it should be at this point in her life. She is being forced to work for man who aren't nearly as smart and are only half her age!

She begins to "audit" the Bishop Group on her own time and things start to come together and she compiles a mass of data and information that will take this company down in the end. From corporate fraud to cutting corners she learns it all!

She not only gets even with the company and gets justice for the victims, she also walks away with something for herself as well.

I would recommend this book to everyone!

What a refreshing book to read! I found Tanzie to be easy to relate to - not because we share life experiences, but because she seemed so real. She was an average, flawed woman. Not flawed in drastic ways - just normal everyday ways. She was really honest with herself. This book was written in first person and sometimes I find that perspective to be .... shallow. Phillips writes very well and really drew me in to the story.

By the time I finished the book, I had forgotten there was a subtitle to the book. It was left open for there to be other Tanzie Lewis books and I certainly look forward to reading more! If you are a fan of Kinsey Milhone, you'll like Tanzie Lewis!