The Coworker

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER

"Don't start a Freida McFadden book late at night. You won't be able to put it down!"― Natalie Barelli, bestselling author of Unforgivable

Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back.

Dawn Schiff is strange.

At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell―beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running―is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything…

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider―she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.

#1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida is the winner of the International Thriller Writer Award for Best Paperback Original, the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller, and was honored as one of TIME 100’s most influential people in the world for 2026. Her novels have been translated into more than 45 languages.

​ Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

To hear Freida talk about herself more in the third person, check out her website freidamcfadden dot com.

The Coworker by Freida McFadden is a fast-paced psychological thriller about office rivalry, secrets, manipulation, and how dangerous appearances can be. The story centers on two women who work at Vixed, a nutritional supplement company: Dawn Schiff and Natalie Farrell. At first, they seem like complete opposites. Dawn is quiet, awkward, and socially uncomfortable. She works in accounting, keeps to herself, follows a strict routine, and has an intense love for turtles. She is the kind of person her coworkers notice only because she seems strange to them. Natalie, on the other hand, is attractive, confident, popular, and successful in sales. She knows how to charm people, how to present herself well, and how to move easily through the office world. From the outside, Natalie seems to have everything Dawn does not: beauty, friends, confidence, a husband, and professional success.

The story begins when Dawn does not show up for work. This is immediately unusual because Dawn is always punctual. She arrives at exactly the same time every day, follows the same habits, and never breaks her routine. Natalie becomes concerned, especially after receiving a strange phone call that makes it sound as if something terrible may have happened to Dawn. When Natalie goes to Dawn’s house to check on her, she finds signs that suggest violence. Dawn is missing, and there appears to be blood. What begins as a simple absence from work quickly turns into a possible murder investigation.

At first, Natalie seems like a concerned coworker who has been pulled into a frightening situation. But as the police begin asking questions, her position becomes more uncertain. It turns out that Dawn may not have been as invisible as everyone thought, and Natalie’s relationship with her was more complicated than she first admits. Emails and other clues suggest that Natalie may have treated Dawn cruelly. The police begin to wonder whether Natalie had a motive to harm her. Natalie insists she is innocent, but the evidence starts to pile up in ways that make her look guilty. Her confident, polished life begins to crack under pressure.

The novel uses alternating perspectives and messages to slowly reveal the truth. Dawn’s side of the story shows how isolated and uncomfortable she felt at work. She struggled to fit in and often became the target of jokes, whispers, and unkind treatment. Her love of turtles, her unusual way of speaking, and her lack of social ease made her stand out in ways that others did not always treat kindly. Through Dawn’s perspective, the reader sees how painful workplace bullying can be, especially when it is disguised as harmless teasing or office gossip. Dawn may seem strange to others, but she is also observant, intelligent, and deeply affected by how people treat her.

Natalie’s side of the story is more slippery. She presents herself as innocent and misunderstood, but the reader gradually sees that she is not as kind or honest as she wants people to believe. She has built her life around being admired and desired, and she is used to getting what she wants. Her success at work may not be entirely clean, and her relationships are not as perfect as they appear. As the investigation continues, secrets from her personal and professional life come out. Her marriage becomes strained, her coworkers begin to doubt her, and the image she has carefully maintained starts to fall apart.

A major part of the suspense comes from the question of who Dawn really was and what actually happened to her. The more Natalie learns, the more it seems that Dawn may have had secrets of her own. Dawn was not simply a helpless victim or an odd coworker. She had been watching, planning, and keeping records. She knew more about Natalie than Natalie realized. The story slowly shifts from a missing-person mystery into a psychological battle between two women who have both hidden parts of themselves.

As the plot unfolds, the reader discovers that the conflict between Dawn and Natalie is connected to much deeper pain than ordinary office tension. The past plays an important role, especially old cruelty and the long-lasting damage caused by bullying. McFadden shows how people who see themselves as harmless can deeply wound others, and how those wounds can grow into obsession and revenge. Dawn’s disappearance is not just a random crime. It is tied to a carefully planned scheme meant to expose Natalie and make her suffer for what she has done.

The twists in the book change the reader’s understanding of both main characters. Natalie is not simply the perfect woman being unfairly accused, and Dawn is not simply the strange coworker who vanished. Both are more complicated than they first seem. The story plays with sympathy, making the reader question who deserves pity, who deserves blame, and whether revenge can ever truly bring justice. Dawn’s intelligence and patience make her a more dangerous opponent than Natalie expected. Natalie’s charm, meanwhile, hides selfishness and cruelty that become harder to ignore.

By the end, the truth behind Dawn’s disappearance is revealed, and the careful trap around Natalie becomes clear. The novel’s final turns show how completely Dawn understood Natalie’s weaknesses and how far she was willing to go to punish her. The ending is dark and ironic, with the balance of power shifting in unexpected ways. The people who seemed strongest are exposed as vulnerable, and the person who seemed weakest turns out to have been controlling much of the game.

The Coworker is ultimately a thriller about masks. Natalie wears the mask of the successful, lovable woman who has everything under control. Dawn wears the mask of the awkward, harmless outsider whom no one takes seriously. But beneath both masks are anger, secrets, and hidden motives. The book also explores how cruelty in everyday places, like offices and social circles, can have serious consequences. Freida McFadden keeps the writing simple, tense, and full of twists, making the story easy to read while still unsettling. It reminds readers that people are not always what they seem, and that the person everyone ignores may be the one paying the closest attention.