Paranoia [Hardcover]

When slacker Adam Cassidy throws an over the top retirement party for a loading dock worker and charges it to his employers expense account he fully expected to get fired. What he didn't expect was to be threatened with a minimum jail sentence of twenty years if he didn't cooperate with Nick Wyatt, founder and CEO of Wyatt Corporation. You see Nick has heard through the grapevine that his competition, Trion, has something major in the works that could potentially revolutionize the communications industry and Wyatt wants it! This is where Adam comes in, they train him to be a model employee as well as their perfect spy.

Once Adam is hired he quickly sky rockets to an executive level position, working directly for Trion's CEO. He is making a six-figure salary, driving a Porsche, and living in a $2million condo all paid for by the company. But as Adam soon finds out being a spy and trying to keep his day job are not as glamorous as it may seem.

One reviewer hit it on the nose when they said that this book reminded them of a Harlan Coben novel. `PARANOIA' was not quite as fast paced as Coben's novels but it certainly had the same feel to it, twist at the end included and all!

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Adam Cassidy, a junior product line manager in the consumer electronics giant Wyatt Telecom, pulls a prank involving the impersonation of a company VP, hacking into Wyatt's proprietary database, and illegally disbursing seventy-eight grand to fund the retirement bash of some unsuspecting (but grateful) shmoe on the loading dock. Cassidy is looking at 55 years of prison time, minimum, unless he plays ball with the company CEO, Nicholas Wyatt, who proposes a scheme to insert Adam as an espionage mole into the heart of Wyatt's biggest competitor, Trion Systems. There's evidence that Trion has initiated a super-secret project, and Cassidy's redemption is to find out what it's all about - or else.

To transform Adam into the marketable Whiz Kid that he isn't, he's intensively prepped by Nicholas Wyatt's personal "executive coach" and provided with a totally fictitious but very impressive CV. Launched into Trion for a job interview, he's subsequently hired. Through apparent luck and circumstance (and with info fed to him by his Wyatt handlers), Adam quickly becomes the special assistant to Trion's CEO, Jock Goddard. Cassidy is now in a perfect position to feed Wyatt intel on Trion's secret project, "Aurora".

As befitting an espionage thriller, author Joseph Finder divides his book's ninety-three chapters into nine parts based on spy terminology, and which mirror the plot's evolution: The Fix (a person is blackmailed into being an agent), Backstopping (establishing an agent's cover), Plumbing (a covert operation's support assets), Compromise (detection by the opposition), Blown (exposure of an agent or operation), Dead Drop (hiding place for clandestine messages), Control (pressure exerted to prevent an agent's defection), Black Bag (illegal entry to obtain intelligence material), and Active Measures (operations that'll affect another nation's policies or strategies).

PARANOIA paints a cynical portrait of corporate business practices and ethics. Indeed, Cassidy is almost an anti-hero since he isn't exactly burdened with moral scruples. He regrets his original stunt only because he got nailed, and his role at Trion because the alternative is so much worse. That is, until he decides that Goddard is the most decent human being he's ever met - the loving father figure he never had. Is Adam developing a conscience?

Even at 400+ pages, PARANOIA is one of those books one wishes would never end. The action is taut, the dialogue clever, the plot darkly comedic, and the ending deliciously twisted (though perhaps not unexpected). My only complaint - a minor one - is that the last chapter, and indeed the very last line, is so lacking in closure for the Cassidy character that I looked to see if my copy was short a couple pages. (I intended to query the author, but hadn't saved his email address.) It only works if there's to be a sequel. But, looking at the author's publishing history, sequels don't seem to be his style.

I suggest PARANOIA would make an entertaining film starring Ben Affleck as Cassidy, Donald Sutherland as Goddard, and Tim Roth as Wyatt.

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His story, told from Adam's viewpoint, almost takes a snapshot of modern, business environments - it's almost like standing, invisible, next to the water cooler listening to the juiciest office gossip. I thought that the style in which this was written was the real hook for me, I thought it was effortlessly written with a real gritty style that reminded me a little of Elmore Leonard. The characters are very well drawn and are consistent. I too found it predictable - but I honestly didn't care that much as I enjoyed reading it so much. Definitely a 'one more chapter' kind of book.

Another thing I liked about this book was that it gets cracking straight from the off and doesn't let up until the final line of the book. I could have read this if it were twice as long. I will be definitely reading more of Finder's work.

An excellent thriller, recommended!

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