Paranoia

Overview

It was only a prank: diverting cash from Wyatt Telecom's executive slush fund to throw a retirement bash for a member of the loading dock crew. But when corporate security catches up with Adam Cassidy, a low ambition junior staffer at the high-tech behemoth, they call it something else: embezzlement, to the tune of nearly $80 grand.

Ruthless CEO Nick Wyatt is impressed by Adam's scheming, and offers him one way out-take on the role of a rising corporate hotshot and infiltrate Wyatt's rival, Trion Systems. His mission is to get close to Trion's legendary founder Jock Goddard, and his ultra-secret "Project Aurora," and report back to Wyatt.

With Wyatt pulling the strings and a dramatically improved identity, Adam is set up as Trion's new boy genius. Suddenly, he's got a sweet new Porsche, a closet full of $1,500 suits, and even a lovely lady who thinks he's a dream. But it's all just a mirage, because Adam is about to learn that nothing is what it seems and that it isn't paranoia...everyone is out to get him.

Editorial Reviews

Is it too early to declare Finder's fifth novel (after High Crimes) the most entertaining thriller of 2004? Probably, but it will be a surprise if another suspenser proves as much sheer fun as Finder's robust tale of corporate espionage. Narrator Adam Cassidy's trip to hell begins when he charges to the company an unauthorized, very expensive party for a retiring blue-collar laborer at their place of work, Wyatt Telecom. Caught, low-level staffer Adam is given an offer he can't refuse by monstrously slick and wealthy CEO Nick Wyatt: penetrate rival high-tech giant Trion Systems and get the goods on Trion's killer new products, or face a battery of felony charges. Adam accepts the deal, and days later he's at Trion, along with false credentials that persuade Trion that he was a key player at Wyatt Telecom, rather than a cube-squatting shlub. Finder presents Adam's thrust into Trion as the scary, grand adventure of a stranger in a strange land, as Adam must contend with a new corporate culture and a host of envious enemies, particularly once he's tapped to be Trion founder Jock Goddard's personal assistant. As Adam comes to admire, even to love, Jock, the demands by Wyatt for ever better intel grate all the more. But if Adam refuses, prison awaits, and anyway he loves his big new salary and perks, not to mention his new, lovely Trion bedmate. Adam's love/hate relationship with his bitter, dying dad and his fragmenting friendship with a pal he's left behind add texture to the relentless suspense, punctuated by tense cloak-and-dagger scenes as Adam steals secrets from his new bosses. A first-rate surprise ending packs a wallop. This novel is the real deal: a thriller that actually will keep readers up way past their bedtimes.
Copyright (c) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Author Information

Bio of Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder was born in Chicago in 1958 and spent much of his early childhood in Afghanistan and the Philippines. He later moved with his family to Bellingham, Washington and then to Albany, New York where he attended high school. As an undergraduate at Yale, Joe majored in Russian studies, sang with the school's legendary a capella group, the Whiffenpoofs, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. In 1984, he received a master's degree from the Harvard Russian Research Center and later taught on the Harvard faculty. At the age of twenty-four, Joe published Red Carpet: The Connection Between the Kremlin and America's Most Powerful Businessmen, a controversial expose about multi-millionaire Dr. Armand Hammer's ties to Soviet intelligence. Though Hammer threatened a libel suit, the fall of the Soviet Union opened archives that verified the truth of Joe's account. Joe turned to fiction in the late 1980s, discovering in the process that his secret sources (Joe is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers) revealed classified information more willingly to a novelist than they did to him as a journalist. His first novel, 1991's The Moscow Club, imagined a KGB coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Some considered the premise far-fetched - until six months after the book's publication, when the coup actually happened. The Moscow Club was eventually published in thirty foreign countries, became a bestseller throughout Europe, and established Joe as an authority on espionage and political intrigue. Joe's second novel, Extraordinary Powers (1994), about the discovery of a Soviet mole in the highest ranks of the CIA, debuted just days before the unmasking of CIA mole Aldrich Ames. In 1996, William Morrow published The Zero Hour, which featured a female FBI agent tracking a terrorist in Manhattan. The Zero Hour was the first novel ever written with the official cooperation of both the CIA and the FBI. Joe's fourth novel, High Crimes, was a Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. The film adaptation of High Crimes, released in 2002, starred Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. 2004 saw the publication of Paranoia, a thriller set in the corporate world that made the New York Times bestseller list in both hardcover and paperback, and is currently in development at Paramount. Joe's most recent novel, Company Man (2005), was an immediate New York Times bestseller, and will be available in paperback in March 2006. He is currently at work on his next book, Killer Instinct, which is scheduled for a Spring 2006 release. Joe continues to write extensively on espionage and international affairs for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. His new book, Killer Instinct, was published by St. Martin's Press on May 16, 2006.

Customer Reviews

• Entertaining

  Posted October 23, 2009 by Julieta, Orange County, CA

  This novel was interesting from the start. The corporate intrigue was well written, and the writing style is comfortable and witty. The main character was a charmer, and I grew to like him quickly. I enjoyed it.

Additional Info

Imprint

St. Martin's Press

Filesize

1.94 MB

Number of Pages

448

eBook ISBN

9781429904247

Awards

• Crime Writers' Association Awards