The Insider

San Francisco lawyer Will Connelly's day gets off to a rough start when a colleague at his high-toned law firm takes a deadly tumble (right past his window, no less) off the roof of their office building. Oddly, the colleague had tried to phone Will twice that morning and even more oddly Will's card key for entering the building was switched with the dead colleague's. Based on this highly circumstantial evidence, the San Francisco police consider Will a suspect.

While all is not doom and gloom for our hero (who later that day finds out he is being offered a partnership with the firm), things take a turn for the even-worse when Will decides to celebrate his new status by going to a pick-up joint for the express purpose of picking someone show more up. He picks up the wrong girl and ends up blundering his way in between a rock and a hard place. As an attorney who handles mergers and acquisitions, he has (in the wake of the colleague's death) just been assigned a career-making case: handling the acquisition of Jupiter Software, the world leader in encryption software. The ill-advised pick-up leads to an unhappy brush with two Russian mobster wannabes. They threaten (and inflict) physical harm and promise to do worse, unless Will plays along and gives them insider trading information.

So now Will is facing scrutiny from the San Francisco police, threats from would-be Russian mobsters, and the choice between either pissing them off royally by going to the authorities or violating law and legal ethics by complying with their wishes. Not cool. Along with various authorities with whom Will could run afoul, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the California Bar, it appears Jupiter has ties with the National Security Agency. Are we having fun yet?

THE INSIDER is, indeed, an engaging and ambitious debut novel. Author Reese Hirsch does a superb job of teasing out a complex and fast-paced plot from this initial set-up. As a practicing attorney, Hirsch also does a masterful job of informing readers about the legal niceties of handling corporate transactions without bogging them down in excess detail and jargon. As the story progresses, the stakes get raised considerably and Will is put through his paces and then some. The question that kept me turning the pages was "How the hell is he going to get out from under all this?"

To read the entire review, see: http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2010/08/insider-roller-coaster-ride-and-life.htm... show less

We all want to make good, and young lawyer Will Connelly is no exception. Will wants to get ahead, and as The Insider opens he's striving to make partner in his San Francisco law firm. Will works hard. In fact, on the day that will change his life he arrives at 6:30 a.m. to get a head start on clocking those billable hours. Will's working so hard that he pointedly ignores the phone call from a co-worker that, if he had answered it, might have saved his life. Or it might not. He'll never know for sure, but moments later he sees this co-worker plummet past the window of his office on the thirty-eighth floor.

Later that morning Will learns he's been made partner. He also learns that Ben Fisher--he who fell to a bloody death--had not. And show more that evening, while celebrating alone, Will meets a beautiful Russian office worker. Even at the best of times a one-night-stand is probably not the best of ideas. With the run of luck which started when Will's key card to the firm's building was found in his dead co-worker's possession, it's not at all a good idea.

Within twenty-four hours Will has been sucked into a practically incomprehensible vortex of threats, pain, and demands that are impossible to comply with. Will's pickup, the lovely Katya, has ties to a couple of Russian wannabe mobsters. The wannabes want Will to give them some insider information about a merger he's working on, one involving Jupiter Software, a company with a revolutionary encryption program. Events pile up upon one another, faster and faster; information comes from all directions, and is often misleading or wrong.

The action in The Insider, the first legal thriller from author (and lawyer) Reece Hirsch, is nonstop. Hirsch works the fabulous San Francisco setting, racing Will--and the reader--all around the city and its environs, including a mad chase through the feathers and leather of the Gay Pride Parade on Market Street. There are more deaths, bad guys are discovered in high places, and by novel's end Will Connelly has embarked upon a different sort of life. A most impressive first novel; I look forward to more from Reece Hirsch. show less

I liked this book, very John Grishomish. I wanted Will to be a bit smarter and turn himself in, but then again I don't always know what is best. I do know to always ask for a lawyer if being questioned by the police for any reason, thank heaven so did he. Great mystery and I didn't guess the end. I love that Will took his life destiny into his own hands and didn't depend on anyone else to fight his battles. It kept my interest to the last page and was fast read.

Reading THE INSIDER by Reece Hirsch I realised that the sub-genre of legal thrillers is one that I rarely read, let alone anything set in one of those huge corporate styled legal firms that seem to take up huge building and do all sorts of incomprehensible "commercial" things. So with that in mind, I'm uncomfortably aware I'm not the most most informed commentator on these types of books. Will Connelly is a lawyer working his way up the corporate ladder in his firm, finally making it to partner, although seeing one of his main competitors for the position fall from an upper story window in the building early one morning perhaps should have been some sort of a warning. As is the idea that new partners in legal firms should, at all costs, show more avoid mysterious Russian women in bars.

The author does an excellent job at taking the reader into the day to day workings and machinations of a large corporate legal firm, without being deathly boring, and there is quite an overall feeling of tension and imminent danger in the storyline. Readers are going to have to happily swallow the threat felt by a single male lawyer from that world who gets involved with the wrong woman, but once the action shifted into the world of murder, insider trading and terrorism things really start to belt along at break-neck pace. There is a point part way through the book where it seems that Connelly hasn't quite got the idea of when you've dug yourself into a corner - stop digging! So I was interested to see how Hirsch was going to get him out of the increasingly complicated problem. Which he did with some aplomb and all loose ends tied up, which is exactly the sort of ending that a lot of readers absolutely love.

I'm not sure how popular Hirsch is going to be with corporate lawyers, particularly those with firms looking for young and upcoming partners. I suspect reading this book might make your average graduate wonder about their career choice. But for fans of legal type thrillers, THE INSIDER has a lot to offer and, in the event of further books, could easily become a series worth following. show less

When corporate attorney Will Connelly goes to work one morning the most important thing on his mind is will he make partner. But when he looks out his window and sees fellow attorney, Ben Fisher, fall to his death things go from bad to worse. His I.D. card is found on Ben and the police think that Will killed Ben. When Will is given the project that Ben was working on, enter the Russians who want Will to give them insider information or else. He is being investigated by the DOJ, is fired from his job, and is being hunted. Will sets out to find out who set him up and clear his name.

This book is such a fast paced read. I loved it and never found a dull spot in the whole book. I would recommend this book to everyone no matter what you like show more to read. I would get mad at the fact that Will refused to ask for help from law enforcement but absolutely loved the way everything was tied up in the end with a nice neat bow. My only hope is that Reece Hirsch makes a series with these characters. Please!!!! show less

The Insider is a suspenseful legal thriller that takes place in the fast paced world of lawyers and corporate double dealing. Will Connelly witnesses a fellow colleague, Ben, fall from his office window to his death. Soon after, Will finds out he has made partner and is now in charge of the merger for a new client, Jupiter Software.
However, Will soon discovers that he is the focus of the police's investigation in Ben's death. He then finds himself the target of an SEC insider-trading investigation, as well as a pawn involved in a criminal scheme with the Russian mob and a terrorist plot.
The book immediately takes off with the death of Will's co-worker in the first few pages. I was constantly guessing which characters were involved in show more the criminal plot. At times I felt like Will made really bad choices, but as you continue reading and get to the end of the book, it became clear that Will was a pawn in a plot much more complicated that it first appears. I had not read a legal thriller in a long time. This book was an exciting, riveting read. I also really enjoyed the understated humor between Will and the Russian thugs. I think I devoured the book in a few days. show less

This book started off with a suicide only a couple pages in, and I felt hooked in by that. Unfortunately my interest began waning in the book only a few pages later. This book suddenly became a formulaic legal thriller; throw in some Russian gangsters, murder, terrorism, corrupt lawyers, and a scared as all hell protagonist. This has just been written already too many times, nothing seemed fresh.

Some of the situations in this book did not seem at all realistic to me. It never felt like Will was in enough danger from Yuri and Nikolai for him to not have gone to the police. Yuri and Nikolai seemed more like fumbling fools than tough gangsters. Also the ending in regards to what happened with the investigation of Will didn't seem realistic show more at all. You mean to tell me just because all those departments that are investigating him receive one piece of evidence that Will is just cleared.

I came into reading this book hoping for something new and fresh, and sadly just found the same old thing. show less