Paranoia

by Joseph Finder

Overview

From the writer whose novels have been called "thrilling" (New York Times) and "dazzling" (USA Today) comes an electrifying novel, Joseph Finder's Paranoia, a roller-coaster ride of suspense that will hold the reader hostage until the final, astonishing twist.

Now a major motion-picture starring Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth, and Gary Oldman.

Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice for a friend, he finds himself charged with a crime. Corporate Security gives him a choice: prison - or become a spy in the headquarters of their chief competitor, Trion Systems.

They train him. They feed him inside information. Now, at Trion, he's a star, skyrocketing to the top. He finds he has talents he never knew he possessed. He's rich, drives a Porsche, lives in a fabulous apartment, and works directly for the CEO. He's dating the girl of his dreams.

His life is perfect. And all he has to do to keep it that way is betray everyone he cares about and everything he believes in.

But when he tries to break off from his controllers, he finds he's in way over his head, trapped in a world in which nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted.

And then the real nightmare begins...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429904247
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/01/2007
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	186,410
File size:	542 KB

About the Author

Joseph Finder is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Buried Secrets, High Crimes, Paranoia and the first Nick Heller novel, Vanished. Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Thriller, and Company Man won the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller. High Crimes was the basis of the Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd movie, and Paranoia was the basis for 2013 film with Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman. Killer Instinct. Born in Chicago, Finder studied Russian at Yale and Harvard. He was recruited by the CIA, but decided he preferred writing fiction. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association for Former Intelligence Officers, he lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Joseph Finder is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Buried Secrets, High Crimes, Paranoia and the first Nick Heller novel, Vanished. Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Thriller, and Company Man won the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller. High Crimes was the basis of the Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd movie, and Paranoia was the basis for 2013 film with Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman. Born in Chicago, Finder studied Russian at Yale and Harvard. He was recruited by the CIA, but decided he preferred writing fiction. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association for Former Intelligence Officers, he lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

Part One

*****
The Fix
Fix: A CIA term, of Cold War origin, that refers to a person who is to be compromised or blackmailed so that he will do the Agency's bidding.
-The Dictionary of Espionage
*****

Until the whole thing happened, I never believed the old line about how you should be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.
I believe it now.

I believe in all those cautionary proverbs now. I believe that pride goeth before a fall. I believe the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, that misfortune seldom comes alone, that all that glitters isn't gold, that lies walk on short legs. Man, you name it. I believe it.

I could try to tell you that what started it all was an act of generosity, but that wouldn't be quite accurate. It was more like an act of stupidity. Call it a cry for help. Maybe more like a raised middle finger. Whatever, it was my bad. I half thought I'd get away with it, half expected to be fired. I've got to say, when I look back on how it all began, I marvel at what an arrogant prick I was. I'm not going to deny that I got what I deserved. It just wasn't what I expected-but who'd ever expect something like this?

All I did was make a couple of phone calls. Impersonated the VP for Corporate Events and called the fancy outside caterer that did all of Wyatt Telecom's parties. I told them to just make it exactly like the bash they'd done the week before for the Top Salesman of the Year award. (Of course, I had no idea how lavish that was.) I gave them all the right disbursement numbers, authorized the transfer of funds in advance. The whole thing was surprisingly easy.

The owner of Meals of Splendor told me he'd never done a function on a company loading dock, that it presented "decor challenges," but I knew he wasn't going to turn away a big check from Wyatt Telecom.

Somehow I doubt Meals of Splendor had ever done a retirement party for an assistant foreman either.

I think that's what really pissed Wyatt off. Paying for Jonesie's retirement party-a loading dock 0guy, for Christ's sake!-was a violation of the natural order. If instead I'd used the money as a down payment on a Ferrari 360 Modena convertible, Nicholas Wyatt might have almost understood. He would have recognized my greed as evidence of our shared humanity, like a weakness for booze, or "broads," as he called women.

If I'd known how it would all end up, would I have done it all over again? Hell, no.

Still, I have to say, it was pretty cool. I was into the fact that Jonesie's party was being paid for out of a fund earmarked for, among other things, an "offsite" for the CEO and his senior vice presidents at the Guanahani resort on the island of St. Barthelemy.

I also loved seeing the loading dock guys finally getting a taste of how the execs lived. Most of the guys and their wives, whose idea of a splurge was the Shrimp Feast at the Red Lobster or Ribs On The Barbie at Outback Steakhouse, didn't know what to make of some of the weird food, the osetra caviar and saddle of veal Provencal, but they devoured the filet of beef en croute, the rack of lamb, the roasted lobster with ravioli. The ice sculptures were a big hit. The Dom Perignon flowed, though not as fast as the Budweiser. (This I called right, since I used to hang out on the loading dock on Friday afternoons, smoking, when someone, usually Jonesie or Jimmy Connolly, the foreman, brought in an Igloo of cold ones to celebrate the end of another week.)

Jonesie, an old guy with one of those weathered, hangdog faces that make people like him instantly, was lit the whole night. His wife of forty-two years, Esther, at first seemed standoffish, but she turned out to be an amazing dancer. I'd hired an excellent Jamaican reggae group, and everyone got into it, even the guys you'd never expect to dance.

This was after the big tech meltdown, of course, and companies everywhere were laying people off and instituting "frugality" policies, meaning you had to pay for the lousy coffee, and no more free Cokes in the break room, and like that. Jonesie was slated to just stop work one Friday, spend a few hours at HR signing forms, and go home for the rest of his life, no party, no nothing. Meanwhile, the Wyatt Telecom E-staff was planning to head down to St. Bart's in their Learjets, boink their wives or girlfriends in their private villas, slather coconut oil on their love handles, and discuss company-wide frugality policies over obscene buffet breakfasts of papayas and hummingbird tongues. Jonesie and his friends didn't really question too closely who was paying for it all. But it did give me some kind of twisted secret pleasure.

Until around one-thirty in the morning, when the sound of electric guitars and the screams of a couple of the younger guys, blotto out of their minds, must have attracted the curiosity of a security guard, a fairly new hire (the pay's lousy, turnover is unbelievable) who didn't know any of us and wasn't inclined to cut anyone any slack.

He was a pudgy guy with a flushed, sort of Porky Pig face, barely thirty. He just gripped his walkie-talkie as if it were a Glock and said, "What the hell?"
And my life as I knew it was over.

Copyright 2004 by Joseph Finder

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
A fast-paced ride through the inner workings of corporate espionage, Joseph Finder's finely plotted novel of secret agendas and corruption unfolds in an expert fashion.

When low-level Wyatt Telecom employee Adam Cassidy is caught red-handed transfering funds to cover expenses for a friend's extravagant retirement party, the company gives him a choice: Face serious embezzlement charges or become a spy at Trion Systems, Wyatt's main competitor. Reluctantly, Adam gets himself hired on at Trion, where he soon finds himself on the fast track to everything he's ever wanted: wealth, respect, and the girl of his dreams. But, as he faces the prospect of double-crossing everyone he cares about, it becomes clear that Adam has been duped and treachery lurks around every corner.

Finder (High Crimes, The Zero Hour) knits clandestine situations and corrupt politics into a gripping story with plenty of twists. Scenes play out with a hip, rollicking energy that propels the plot along with breakneck speed. Though deceptively simple, this suspense tale works on several levels, with the crime element often taking a backseat to more personal matters. Moral dilemmas and questions of professional ethics are subjects not often explored in run-of-the-mill thrillers, but Finder's shrewd understanding of conflicted human nature helps elevate Paranoia above most books in the genre. Tom Piccirilli

bn.com

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. (Jan. 20) Forecast: High Crimes, filmed with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, hit bestseller lists in mass market. With a major push from the publisher, including a five-city author tour, plus hot word of mouth, this novel should do the same in hardcover and has the potential to make Finder a household name. Rights sold in seven countries; simultaneous audiobooks from Audio Renaissance. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Adam Cassidy is a slacker who has screwed up big time. He's only a junior product-line manager at Wyatt Telecom, but he has embezzled what turns out to be a shocking $78,000. The money went to cover a retirement bash for a loading-dock foreman, to give him the same splurge that executives get. Adam hates his job, so he would not have minded being fired. Instead, he's threatened by Corporate Security with up to 20 years in a federal penitentiary unless he agrees to infiltrate their rival company-Trion Systems. With Wyatt backing him at every step, he's hired by Trion and soon finds himself an executive assistant to the CEO, a man who treats him like a son. Adam, whose own bitter father is dying of emphysema, is torn by ethical dilemmas as he takes ever-greater risks to penetrate the layers of security around Trion's latest project, the most important technological breakthrough since the integrated circuit. Don't start this book at 8:00 p.m. or you'll be up all night. Finder's (Zero Hour) latest is a fun read with a hip narrator, an engaging story set in a world rarely seen in thrillers, and great suspense. Highly recommended for all popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/03.]-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Despite a killer first printing and advance sales to Hollywood and seven other foreign countries, Finder's turn from Soviet spying to the corporate variety doesn't reach the heights of High Crimes (1998). Adam Cassidy doesn't take his midlevel job at Wyatt Communications seriously enough to worry about what will happen if a harmless but expensive prank leads to his dismissal. But when he's caught and confronted with the consequences, he sees that getting fired is the least of his problems. He's looking at 20 years in jail unless he allows CEO Nicholas Wyatt and his hired guns-menacing security director Arnold Meacham and insinuating executive coach Judith Bolton-to groom him as a corporate spy. His manners refined and his resume stuffed with impressive new lies, Adam interviews for a job with Wyatt's competitor Trion Systems, where his combination of ignorance, luck, and brass-in Finder's cleverest stroke-rockets him past his original boss, Dragon Lady Nora Sommers, her smilingly treacherous protege Chad Pierson, and even Machiavellian Chief Financial Officer Paul ("Cutthroat") Camilletti to the ultimate corridor of power: an office outside that of homespun founder/CEO Jock Goddard. Adam is resentful of the thugs pulling his strings back at Wyatt and beguiled by Goddard's instant acceptance of him as a surrogate son-an interest his own troubled relationship with his dying father makes him happy to reciprocate. So he's soon taking time off from spying on Goddard and Alana Jennings, the predecessor who's moved over to the Disruptive Technologies Unit, to bond with the first and bed the second, all the while looking nervously over his shoulder. The cardboard characters-especially Alana,whose relationship with Adam inspires not paranoia but mild impatience-seem to be waiting for the movie stars to fill them in and give them life in this upscale consumer fantasy (the Porsche! the haberdashery!) of industrial espionage. First printing of 150,000; film rights to Paramount; author tour. Agent: Molly Friedrich/Aaron M. Priest Agency

Kirkus Reviews

Paranoia is a knock-out—a fresh, original and compelling novel that is impossible to put down.” —Daniel Silva

“A fresh voice, terrific characters, and high-octane suspense.” —Harlan Coben, author of Tell No One

“Paranoia is the real thing—a sleek, hip and fast-paced thriller that gets its hooks in you from the very first page.” —Lisa Scottoline, author of Dead Ringer

“Sharp, wicked, funny, exciting.” —Andrew Klavan, author of True Crimes

“Scott Brick narrates flawlessly, using one voice that manages not only to portray Adam's satiric sense of humor but also to capture each of the many other characters' personalities. By using a variety of tempos and modulating his voice, Brick maintains tension and builds nonstop suspense. This great performance is a perfect fit for the writing.” —Audio File

“This kind of stuff is Brick's Forte. He handles suspense with just the right touch.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Publisher