The Job

The Job by Douglas Kennedy
A competent thriller about the cut-throat world of sales that spirals out of control into the usual “one-man-alone-defeats-the-criminals” scenario, I suspect this was written with the airport trash/American market solely in mind. Kennedy is a better writer than this, but here he conforms to all the stereotypes in an effort to fit a niche. Okay in an embarrassing sort of a way, the kind of thing you might read if you found it on the shelf of a cottage in the Outer Hebrides, and it was either that or the Bible in Gaelic, but not my kind of reading.

This is a wonderful beach book. I loved it. It is truly a great read. Ned Allen is a go-getter sales maven. He loses his job and his wife and finds his life auguring down quickly. His first steps on the way back dip his toe into a huge corporate mess where bodies start to appear. The best thing about this book is Ned Allen. I was rooting for him from the first word to the last. According to my copy, this is Kennedy's second book. I'm off to find the first one!

While the premise of this book may not be likely, after all the upheaval seen in business during the past few years, it could certainly happen. The story concerns Ned Allen, an ad salesman, earning a good salary (but who couldn't use more?) at a competitive computer magazine. When the magazine is sold, Ned's whole life turns upside down. He is left without what defined him: his job, which even though he didn't realize it, characterized his sense of self, including his moral convictions.

This is also a novel about what happens when we allow someone else to have more control of our lives than we ever ought to concede. This is true for Ned, but it is especially true for his wife whose future is dependent on what her husband thinks he show more should or shouldn't do without ever consulting her.

Ned's life takes a number of twists and turns before the book concludes. I was drawn into these events mostly because this whole scenario could happen to someone in Ned's position. I believe that it's a huge mistake for business, thanks to little else to show for itself other than greed, cannabalizes itself by continually having the larger companies feeding off the smaller ones. No one benefits from this except top company executives, and in the short term, stock holders. Consumers and employees are the big losers in this script as is very well described in The Job show less

A typically trashy airport read - which I really did buy at the airport. I never believed that the main character was real - and I cared even less. It read as a cookie-cutter type story with predictable results at each crisis that Ned Allen faced. The ending was very disappointing, after such an elaborate build up. I had the feeling that Kennedy had been told, "The book is too long. You've got to wind it up in the next 5 pages. Don't use too much detail." I'd like the few hours back that I wasted on this.

Ace salesman Ned Allen is flying high as Sales Director for a New York computer magazine, but is fiercely ambitious and finds himself biting off more than he bargained when an old school acquaintance makes him an offer he can't refuse. The story has shades of The Firm by John Grisham, but is a well crafted story with a mostly believable plot and characters. It kept my attention and I read it quickly to find out how it ended. Recommended.

Ned Allen is a young, upwardly mobile ad salesman for a successful computer magazine. Several years into his career, he's confident that he's finally left his small-town roots behind, and that the sophisticated Manhattan world he covets is his forever. His wife, Lizzie, is also flourishing at a prestigious public relations firm. Life, it seems, is just where they want it.
Until Ned is faced with a seemingly clear cut moral choice that pulls the bottom out from under him. Ned's company is sold and he's suddenly and brutally fired, the circumstances surrounding his job loss rendering it impossible to land elsewhere in the industry. When a supportive yet frustrated Lizzie accepts a temporary job in Los Angeles, Ned's downward spiral is show more nearly complete.
Salvation appears in the unlikely form of an old high school friend who is working for Jack Ballantine, a former real estate tycoon with a shady past who has recently made a much heralded comeback. When, against his better judgment, Ned accepts a job working for Ballantine's latest venture, an offshore private equity fund, he tells himself it's just another job. But it turns out that Ballantine has other uses for Ned. show less

You will like the protagonist of this novel, Ned Allen. He is a believable character. Ned starts off as a salesman that can close deals. but then he has trouble with job and family because he has ethics and sticks to them. Which makes him ready to accept a "Too good to be true" job from an old buddy. Our hero forgets that if it is too good to be true.... Ned gets trapped in the dealings of his buddy in real estate and there seems to be no way out. We watch Ned extricate himself from one impossible situation after another.

The author has done his homework. For he is very accurate on his details on even flight schedules and gates. (It is as if American Airlines hired him to advertise). You will not want to put the book down. Should take show more you two days or less. The ending should have been written better...but still an enjoyable read. show less