Power Play

By: Joseph Finder

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

An off-site corporate event gone disastrously wrong. The largest ransom in history. The price-tag: dead or alive. Now, in Joseph Finder's explosive thriller Power Play, it's up to Jake Landry—a modest, steady guy with a dark, hidden past—to save them all...

It was the perfect retreat for a troubled company. No cell phones. No BlackBerrys. No cars. Just a deluxe lodge surrounded by thousands of miles of wilderness and a desolate seacoast.

Jake Landry is a junior executive at the Hammond Aerospace Corporation, a steady, modest, and taciturn guy with a gift for keeping his head down—and a turbulent past he prays he's put behind him. Ordered to fill in for his boss at the annual offsite, he's out of his element. He's uncomfortable with the lavish accommodations and especially with the arrogant, swaggering men who run the company and the only person he knows there is the new special assistant to the CEO—who happens to be Jake's ex.

Then a band of hunters, apparently lost in the woods, crash the opening-night festivities. Soon the execs of a billion-dollar company, cut off from the rest of the world, find themselves at the mercy of a group of men with guns...and a cunning plan to take Hammond Aerospace for all it's worth.

But the hostage takers aren't who they appear to be and neither is Jake Landry. The high flyers hadn't wanted Jake to come along. Now he's the only one who can save them.

©2007 Joseph Finder (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

"[This is Finder's] most entertaining and compelling novel of adventure and intrigue yet." (Boston Globe)

Great Book, Poor Narrator

I had to get the book because I only read the paperback versions (I like to carry them with me) and I am impatient. I am somewhat new to the audiobook idea and have listened to a handful of other books before this one. In my opinion, the narrator was a very poor choice as he made the main character sound pompous and cocky which while this may be the case in the Company Man series; I do not think Mr. Finder meant it here. He also represented the other characters very poorly, especially the women. I know that as a male reader, it can be difficult to represent a woman, but this narrator was particularly bad. The characters did not “come to life”; rather they ran together as this narrator made them all sound the same, with the exception of the women, which he did in a slightly higher voice. I will be sure to avoid other books he narrates. If Mr. Finder has any input in who narrates his books I do hope that he will consider another reader, such as Martin Jarvis who did a phenomenal job in Jeffery Archer’s “A Prison Diary.”

Power Play

The book was way too short. The story was good and different than most. Definitely worth the price. The narration was excellent. Finally, a narrator that measures up to Scott Brick.

I really wanted to give it four stars!

I really enjoyed Joseph Finder's previous 3 audio titles, so when I heard that a new title was coming out at the end of August I downloaded it immediately.

Killer Instinct shares great dialogue, realistic characters and an uncanny ability to create and describe the politics and back-stabbing that go on at the upper levels of corporations with Finder's previous 3 titles Paranoia, Company Man and Killer Instinct. The major weakness of Power Play is in it's under developed plot. Not that the theme of the book is not engaging; it is, it is just not enough to create a book of any substantial length.

The book is based on the question "What would happen if the high level managers of a major corporation brought together for corporate team building adventure games suddenly found themselves in a life or death situation?" This is a great question, but I am not convinced that Finder extracted all that he could out of it. Also, near the start of the book he introduced a potentially interesting sub-plot related to the manufacturing of fiber reinforced plastics for airplanes that I felt could have been used more effectively through the rest of the book.

The weak plot is tragic because this book could have been so much more. If we were using a 10 point rating scale I would have given it a 7 out of 10. I still enjoyed it, but my favourite Finder audio book is Paranoia.

Disappointing in two ways...

Any additional comments?

I bought Power Play after enjoying Finder’s Killer Instinct. Sadly, my latest read was disappointing. The tale would have been better suited to a short story format, as it doesn’t succeed in being grand in either vision or execution. So, at least it could have been shorter. The story is entertaining enough I suppose, but I was never caught off-guard, never surprised, never teased, never moved. The characters felt more like caricatures. The intriguing setting was tragically wasted. The details of the aerospace industry remained tangential window-dressing.

As for the performance, Mr. Boutsikaris read the narrative sections well, and offered due diligence for most of the characters. The female characters, however, came off as shallow and unlikeable. Throughout the book, I kept finding myself reciting a line of dialog out loud with a different inflection, and thinking, “If he had read it that way she’d sound strong and intelligent instead of snide and pathetic.”

Overall, I wish I had used my credit on something else.

Slow start but a good ending

What did you like best about Power Play? What did you like least?

The best part of the book was to the final third when Jake finally decided to take action. The story was gripping and exciting from this point to the end. What I liked the least was the slow start and a very slow part that followed the initial hostage-taking.

If you’ve listened to books by Joseph Finder before, how does this one compare?

I've only heard one before. I think that this book had a slower start, but was otherwise similar in exploring corporate espionage and very ordinary heros.

What about Dennis Boutsikaris’s performance did you like?

He ensured that the story was front and center. Truth be told, I hadn't even thought of the narrator until this question, which is a good thing. He never got in the way of the story.

Could you see Power Play being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Definitely. I could see Matthew McConnaughy as Jake Landry.

Not bad...but not great

I really enjoy Joseph Finder and his blend of corporate thrillers. Reading the synopsis of this story, I knew going into it, that it did not fit this traditional mold. I thought the story was solid and a decent listen, but nothing spectacular as some of his other titles. If you have extra credits to spend, then give it a shot...but please take it on face value and let's not talk about realism etc. It is after all, a story about a kick butt young suit, taking on a trained group of killers!

what a great find

this time the star rating factor here at Audible worked. I found this book searching for something new and read the review and I could not have been happier. This is a great book. Well done -

Very Average

Am I the only Finder fan who was disappointed with this book? First off, I don't know why Scott Brick wasn't used as the narrator, but he should have been. This narrator was fine, but wasn't Brick. Second, I felt the first 1/2 of the book was so slow. It wasn't grabbing my attention and I had to go back several times and re-listen - not because I couldn't understand it, but because I was bored and not paying attention. Lastly, I think as a soldier in Corporate America, I could relate to some extent to characters in his other books or they reminded me of people I have worked with. In this book everyone seemed far-fetched.

I am interested in other Finder fans take on this book. I hope he isn't losing his touch so soon. If you are a fan of his but have other stuff on your wishlist, this one can wait.

Not So Thrilling Thriller

The premise of the plot is exciting and intriguing. All of the senior executives of a large publicly held aerospace company, are on an annual team-building retreat in a secluded lodge, totally without communications with the outside world. The lodge is taken over by a bunch of hoods, who hold them hostage for the payment of $500 million. It quickly becomes apparent that the executives are the victims of a well-planned plot aimed at them. Just to make sure that they take their plight seriously, a few are killed early on, and, in order to save their own lives, the captives start trying to figure out how to transfer that enormous sum of money to the thugs. In fact, the only ones in the company who could effectuate the payment to the kidnappers, are the hostages themselves.

While that’s pretty exciting stuff, the plot is transparent and not easily believable. The characters are one-dimensional and only mildly interesting corporate stereotypes, living with endless intra-corporate intrigues and rivalries. The hero is so improbable that he should be wearing a superman costume.

Still, I did want to learn how it would all turn out, and there was enough suspense to keep me reading. There were a few interesting bits about the engineering problems of building a jet plane, and I wish there were more. Some insight into the struggles of a woman as CEO over a group of men, was welcomed. Fortunately, the story progressed rapidly and the book was not tedious.

This is a mediocre, but not terribly bad, adventure/suspense novel, which is perfect for interrupted listening while traveling. You can come back to it after long absences between trips, and pick up the thread of the story without confusion or wondering what’s going on. The characters are relatively few, as are the events. This is not a literary book, and I can think of many others of this genre that are better reads. Having bought it, though, I never thought of not finishing it.

Not a Comedy

I just finished listening. I have to say that I was surprised by the dialogue of a "regular joe" like Jake. I was laughing at points and wondering at others. I am not sure if it was the dialogue or the narrator, but something was not right. Jake Landry would not describe the rape of his girlfriend as from one who had "wolly brown pubic hair" He lost me at that one. Nor would he stop to describe the beauty of the Canadian location as flowery as it is described. I think it is a good book with a great premise but I found myself thinking that I should have read the book, rather than listened to it.