Joseph Finder

This is an action thriller that combines elements similar to Grisham's "The Firm" (the hero even recognizes in passing that the place he is working reminds him of 'that Tom Cruise movie where he works in a crooked law firm') and a reverse mafia romance.

Our poor hero, Paul/Grant, is an investment analyst who falls in love with a young photographer from Russia. Only after he is head-over-heels in love does he realize that her father is a fabulously wealthy Russian Oligarch living in New York. show more And that oligarchs merit their notorious reputations. Things go downhill pretty fast, as Paul finds himself married to his sweetheart and working for her father. And that some VERY shady things are going on at Dad-in-Law's investment firm. As he tries to do the right thing, it all spirals out of control in typical thriller fashion and our hero is soon on the run. The book moves back and forth in time between when this all was occurring (how he got into the mess he is in) and the current day, five years later, when the false identity he has been living under is blown and he has to go on the run again.

I was going to rank it at 3.5*, because although a competent thriller, it was not terribly original, and because the fact that Paul's father happened to be a wacko anti-government survivalist who had taught some of his off-the-grid tactics to Paul in his youth came in AMAZINGLY HANDY. But I upped it to 4.0* in the end because after the requisite near death experiences and collateral blood bath, it has an unexpectedly rather nice conclusion. show less

At first look, BURIED SECRETS is the sort of book I generally don’t read. There are people with too much money, the children of people with too much money who are held captive because of it, the FBI, some very, very bad people whose cruelty makes the Mafia seem childish, government skulduggery, the FBI, and it is the second in a series and I like to read series from the beginning.

In its favor is the setting, Boston, my hometown, and it was a Goodreads giveaway. These two pros outweighed show more the six cons (I only counted the FBI once). Happily, it turns out that everything about BURIED SECRETS is really, really good.

Nick Heller has set himself up in business as a private spy. Nick had been the real thing in secret organizations in Washington, DC and in the military and now offers his services to rich people who need information that even they can’t access. Nick doesn’t expect that one of his first jobs is going to be something very close to home. Marshall Marcus is a billionaire financier who was a close friend of Nick’s father’s until Victor Heller ends up in prison for doing the same kind of thing Bernie Madoff did. Marshall calls Nick in a panic. Someone has kidnapped Alexa, his seventeen year-old daughter and is holding her for ransom. Problem for Alexa and her father is that he has also managed to lose billions of dollars that didn’t belong to him and he has made some very nasty enemies. Nick knows that Marshall isn’t telling him the truth but when streaming video of Alexa is sent to Marshall’s computer, Nick has no choice but to do what he can to rescue the girl.

Almost everything about this book is right. Nick Heller is not superman. He has skills most people do not have but he doesn’t have superpowers. His relationship with his assistant, Dorothy, rings true. She has skills that complement his and Dorothy is not young and not in his bed. The dialog sounds right, not silly; there are acronyms and computer-speak but it isn’t irritating. Nick connects with a former girlfriend who works with the FBI but their mutual attempts to deal reasonably with their former relationship is grown-up.

Finder knows Boston. One scene that locals will understand is a meeting between Heller and Senator Armstrong, the junior senator from Massachusetts, who lives on Louisberg Square, the ritziest address in the old money section of Boston, Beacon Hill. Finder didn’t need to use much imagination for the scene; he just needed to substitute senior senator for junior senator and he is describing a morning in the life of John Kerry. Joseph Finder is as good as the late William Tappley and Robert Parker in bringing the city to life.

The only thing I did not like is the graphic violence that comes in toward the end of the book. I hope that the weapon used is the product of the author’s imagination. I read BURIED SECRETS in a day. I will read VANISHED in order to meet Nick Heller at the beginning of the series and then I will likely move on to the other books Finder has written. show less

Mike Tanner is not thriving, personally or professionally. His wife, Sarah, has moved out and may soon file for divorce. Mike's niche coffee business, "Tanner Roast," is losing major accounts to a cutthroat competitor. As if these problems were not enough to give him indigestion, Mike grabs the wrong laptop while moving through airport security. "The Switch," by Joseph Finder, is a thriller about an Everyman caught up in a situation that could cost him his life.

When reading books of this show more type, its helps to suspend one's disbelief. What are the odds that a powerful legislator would be stupid enough to keep highly classified information on her personal laptop and leave a Post-It note containing her password stuck to the computer? We're talking career suicide here. The author, of course, is channeling a former Democratic nominee for president who landed in hot water for using a private email server to conduct official business. Will Abbott, Robbins' chief of staff, is blindly loyal to his boss and hopes to occupy the White House if and when Robbins is elected president. In his desperation to retrieve the laptop, Abbott sets in motion illegal and dangerous schemes to achieve his goal.

Joseph Finder avoids some of the more common pitfalls that frequently trip up action-adventure writers. The author imbues his hero, Mike, with street smarts, but does not insult us by transforming him into a superhero. Clearly in over his head, Mike scrambles to stay ahead of his pursuers. He does not have an arsenal of weapons or an army of bodyguards to protect him, so he stays alive by using his powers of reasoning, negotiation, and when all else fails, hiding. Abbott, a new dad who adores his wife and child, is no Neanderthal. He is an intelligent individual who, in an effort to correct a disastrous mistake, makes a bad situation worse. In this entertaining and briskly-paced novel, Joseph Finder tackles such themes as the intrusive specter of electronic surveillance on private citizens. "The Switch" should appeal to fans of "ripped-from-the headlines" political thrillers. show less

In Joseph Finder's "House on Fire," private investigator Nick Heller is a former member of the United States Army's Special Forces. When Nick's buddy, Sean Lenehan, returned from multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, his job as a demolition expert left him with excruciating headaches. His doctor prescribed Oxydone, an inhalable opioid, and Sean quickly became hooked. Nick is grief-stricken when Sean's wife, Patty, calls to inform him that, after supposedly kicking the habit, Sean show more died of an overdose. Nick will never forget that when he was gravely wounded in combat and near death, Sean dragged him to safety and applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Since then, Nick had remained close to Sean, Patty, and their children.

Ironically, Heller's new client is documentary filmmaker and activist Susan (Sukie) Kimball. Her billionaire father, Dr. Conrad Kimball, owns a huge pharmaceutical company, and has made a fortune marketing Oxydone, the substance that killed Sean. Dr. Kimball's detractors accuse him of encouraging and even bribing doctors to overprescribe this devastating opioid. Sukie hires Nick to find a long-buried study that proves how quickly patients become dependent on Oxydone. Her mission is to give plaintiffs legal ammunition that that could potentially bankrupt Kimball Pharma, and even land her dad in prison for covering up the truth about a dangerous product.

"House on Fire" is a fast-paced thriller with an exciting plot, crisp dialogue, hissable villains, thought-provoking and timely themes, and suspenseful action sequences. After launching his inquiry, Nick is shocked when someone he cares about is murdered. Fortunately, he has secret weapons of his own, including a highly-skilled employee, Dorothy Duval, who once worked for the NSA and is whiz at uncovering forensic data. In addition, Heller calls on buddies who have specialized gadgets that could help him obtain the information he needs. Nick falls back on his SEAL training to defend himself, and uses high-tech equipment to break into locked rooms and set up electronic surveillance. This is an entertaining tale of greed and family dysfunction in which a courageous and resourceful man risks his life to bring down corrupt and ruthless adversaries. show less