“I do more than mindlessly clean. I watch over everyone, help them manage their days. I shuffle important work to the top of their inboxes, leave snacks so their blood sugar won’t drop, and help course-correct by weeding out the duds. I can easily spot someone who isn’t a good fit here, someone who’s going to waste the company’s time and resources before moving along to something they think is bigger and better. It’s best to oust these people as quickly as possible.”

Cleaner is the first novel by American author, Brandi Wells. The unnamed protagonist is the night time cleaner of a city building that houses the employees of an unnamed company. The employees, too, are unnamed: sometimes given an initial; sometimes dubbed according to some characteristic that the Cleaner gleans from what is on and in their desks and, if their password is handy, their computer files and their emails.

Thus: Yarn Guy (spools of yarn in his bottom drawer); Mr Buff (travel-sized containers of different protein powders); Sad Intern (bottle of probiotics, some B12 and a book on how to master your feelings); The Vomiter; Good Influence; Scissors Guy (a stash of borrowed scissors); Porn Guy (exchanging lewd gifs). There’s L. the security person, M. the delivery person, C. the CEO.

The Cleaner imagines interactions between the employees, and her own potential future encounters with them. She draws conclusions about them from what she finds and conjures up lives for them. She does what she can to mentor them, to make them all a better, more productive employees, all without actually meeting any but the Sad Intern in real life.

She worries about the company’s downsizing, wonders if there’s some creeping illness affecting the business. Then she makes a disturbing discovery about the CEO, and it has her concerned: “All I want is for the company to run smoothly, but I’ve had to deal with not just his mismanagement but his burgeoning personal life. I wouldn’t have to do any of this if he weren’t hurting the company, trying to sever me from these people who clearly need me. I haven’t invested all this time and work for nothing.”

Clearly, the narrator isn’t entirely reliable. She feels heavily invested in the company and employees who are basically unaware of what she gets up to. “I go home and think about all my employees, everyone still left on the fourth floor, and how I can protect them.” She carries out petty acts of sabotage on those she deems unworthy, or endows little rewards and encouragements for those she feels need/deserve them, many of which are blackly funny. And exactly who deserves either praise or punishment changes with a word, a gesture, a blink of the eye. A laugh-out-loud funny, crazy, entertaining debut.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Headline Wildfire.