Killer Instinct

By: Joseph Finder

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive living in Boston and working for an electronics giant, a competitors to Sony and Panasonic. He's a witty, charismatic guy who's well liked at the office, but he lacks the "killer instinct" necessary to move up the corporate ladder. To the chagrin of his ambitious wife, it looks as if his career has hit a ceiling. Jason's been sidelined.

But all that will change one evening when Jason meets Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces officer just back from Iraq. Looking for a decent pitcher for the company softball team, Jason gets Kurt, who was once drafted by the majors, a job in Corporate Security. Soon, good things start to happen for Jason—and bad things start to happen to Jason's rivals. His career suddenly takes off. He's an overnight success. Only too late does Jason discover that his friend Kurt has been secretly paving his path to the top by the most "efficient"—and ruthless— means available. After all, as Kurt says, "Business is war, right?"

But when Jason tries to put a stop to it, he finds that his new best friend has become the most dangerous enemy imaginable. And now it's far more than just his career that lies in the balance. A riveting tale of ambition, intrigue, and the price of success, Killer Instinct is Joseph Finder at his best.

*San Francisco Chronicle
** Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Audio edition includes an exclusive bonus interview with Joseph Finder and Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Blink and The Tipping Point!

©2006 Joseph Finder (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC.

Critic reviews

"[A] masterful business thriller....Readers who enjoy movies where you have to fight the urge to shout 'Stop! Don't open that door!' will love this one." (Publishers Weekly)

"Steadman's 10-month ride from complacency to terror is filled with...thrills and chills." (Booklist)

Entertaining

This Audio book is one that I had a very hard time putting on pause! It had me from the beginning... I work in the high tech industry, and was in the military and I have played softball for my work group... Finder describes things as they are, and makes things happen in a way that keep you wanting more, to get to the real reason things are happening and how deep things really go...I highly recommend this to anyone with similar backgrounds, or lovers of a good mystery/thriller.

Intriguing and insightful!

I love books that are suspenseful but also give you new insights. Fun and well spoken. Be sure to listen to the interview at the end.

Dilbert-Like

I really enjoyed this. Joseph Finder does his homework, and sometimes you get the eerie feeling that he's been in your workplace, similar to the feeling you get reading a Dilbert comic!

Look forward to many more of Finder's works.

Finder and Brick pair up well

Love the main characters of Finder narrated by Brick. Good action, character development and story line. Not Finder's best (still like Paranoia the best) but worth the credit and corporate suspense/thriller is a nice change from my typical choices of espionage and detective/mystery.

GREAT DRAMA

What did you like best about Killer Instinct? What did you like least?

I knew there was something up but couldn't really get get my head around it until the end. I love the way Finder helps us understand each characters mind

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Made me think...when would I have stopped?

What does Scott Brick bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I enjoy speaker where I can actually distinguish each characters voice. Those subtle differences in tone

Do you think Killer Instinct needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. I don't think so. Main character is just ordinary sales person.

Fascinating - my introduction to Finder's writing

This was the first Finder novel that I have listened to. I found it to be refreshingly well-written. There was plenty of information to keep me interested, but not so many different simultaneous plotlines that I could not follow. Finder kept the story fairly simple and that's what I like most about this book. The story is interesting - I will recommend it to my friends.

Excellent listen

I sat in a parking lot many times while listening to this book. You may think you know what's going to happen next. Very well done.

Killer Instinct

A "page-turner" . Very good story, well told.

Actually better than I first expected

When first selecting this book, I thought it might not be a good selection for me but couldn't find something I thought looked better. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the book.

Some of the characters were a little preditable but it was still well narratored and enjoyable.

My first Finder novel, won't be my last

This is the first Joseph Finder book that I picked up, and I liked it enough (in fact, I loved it), to grab up a handful of his other works.

Jason Steadman is a middle manager who has his life together, and has a decent, if mediocre job. A salesman, Jason is married to Kate, a woman who thinks he lacks the drive to improve their situation - i.e. negotiate a promotion and bring in a bigger paycheck. She's got needs, you see.

Jason meets former Special Ops agent Kurt Semko following a car accident where Semko comes to his aid. Jason lays out his problems with Kate, his dismissive boss Gordy, and an uber-cutthroat rival named Trevor. Taken with Jason, Kurt decides to start doing a few favors, when suddenly his Jason's career begins taking off. But as Kurt becomes increasingly obsessed with Jason's life, Jason comes to realize that Kurt has a lot more layers - and is far more dangerous - than he ever dreamed.

It's a decently paced story, with an increasingly unstable antagonist in Kurt, and a likable, if rather beige protagonist in Jason. It took me a long time to warm up to his wife Kate, who I originally pegged as superficial, demanding, and spoiled, and Trevor is a bit of a mustache twiller that we've all worked with at some point. There's a great chase scene, and an ever growing sense of dread as Jason slowly comes to realize the stalking, sociopathic behavior, and deadly intentions of his new "friend," the fixer. With friends like these.....