The Finder

A Novel

By: Colin Harrison

Narrated by: Jason Culp

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

There's no doubt about it: Colin Harrison is a master storyteller. Critics and readers love his gripping, dark books. It's hard not to get sucked into his world. Entertainment Weekly calls him the "class act of the urban thriller," Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times lauds him as "a master of mood and atmosphere," and Publishers Weekly crows that Harrison "writes like an angel."

Now, the author of The Havana Room, Afterburn, and Manhattan Nocturne raises the stakes with an electrifying new thriller, The Finder. Harrison spins the story of a young, beautiful, secretive Chinese woman, Jin-Li, who gets involved in a brilliant scheme to steal valuable information from corporations in New York City. When the plan is discovered by powerful New Yorkers who stand to lose enormous sums of money, Jin-Li goes on the run. Meanwhile, her former lover, Ray Grant, a man who was out of the country for years but who has recently returned, is caught up in the search for her. Ray has not been forthcoming to Jin-Li about why he left New York or what he was doing overseas, but his training and strengths will be put to the ultimate test against those who are unmerciful in their desire to regain a fortune lost. Ray is going to have to find Jin-Li, and he is going to have to find her fast.

©2008 Colin Harrison (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Jake is our hero - funny, courageous, and wickedly clever - and Boutsikaris reads his character with just the right touch. He does a great job portraying the many other players and reads at a good brisk pace that reflects the building tension and action.” —Library Journal

“Jason Culp's narration adds edge to this tightly plotted corporate thriller…The gripping story and the deft reading make for a solid listening experience.” —Publishers Weekly

“A gripping thriller by a master storyteller, tautly written, and ingeniously plotted. The Havana Room has the raw, scathing commentary of The Bonfire of the Vanities and the pacing of The Firm all rolled into one terrific read. This is Colin Harrison's best book yet.” —Vince Flynn, author of Executive Power on The Havana Room

15 Stars! Awesomely Researched Action Adventure!

So much going on yet plotted together with super glue! Really, I had difficulty turning this book off even, or especially for, sleep! Harrison has learned how to tease the reader to keep listening. You know how occasionally you say to yourself, "Okay, here's a good place to pause to get back to my life... but maybe just 15 minutes more?" 15 minutes that turn into another hour? That's how this team of Harrison and Culp grab you by the ears and make you wanna' keep listening.

There's adventure here, plot twists, and... and... money, greed, science, technology, action heroes, strong women, shifty villains, and... and... Look, if you like detective, financial, medical, tech, fire, GSR, hidden rooms, mobsters and... and...

YOU ARE GOING TO ENJOY the tight plotting, NON-CARTOON-character, energy of The Finder. I did enough to wish there were more stars to give it!

really good

This was an entrancing book. All the bizarre characters came completely to life. And love triumphs at the end.
I really enjoyed it.

A Well-formed Urban Crime Novel

"But in Tom's case most of the conversation involved abstractions that were answered with abstractions. The people on the other end of the conversation were working within an algorithm, too. This meant that Tom had very few real conversations. He spoke to dozens of people a day but always within his corporate persona and within the appropriate algorithm He was trapped. The man he'd been once was either buried under all of this behavior or even, perhaps, gone. Irrecoverably. We change in only one direction. We don't ever change back. She still loved Tom, she supposed, at least out of a kind of habit; her mind was trapped within its own algorithms too, of course.

But in this overall perception about her husband, who was now brushing his teeth in their bathroom, came another one. Tom had made an error. A big human error. He had misjudged a human being. Maybe it was Martz, maybe it was someone else. The misjudgment was a serious one, full of huge personal and professional risk. This led to another thought.

Tom was stalling because he didn't have an algorithm.
He had never seen the problem before.
He didn't know what to do."
-- Colin Harrison, The Finder

My first Colin Harrison novel. My brother turned me onto him, years ago. I learned he edited David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, William H. Gass, etc., while working at Harpers Mag. I figured if this guy could use a red pen on DFW, Franzen and Gass, he must be above average. So, I collected his novel, but still never quite jumped in, until yesterday. Anyway, enough foreplay. I liked the novel. It was a well-formed urban crime novel that traveled from money and power to poverty and destitution. Well thought out, and of course, well written. Not quite a John le Carré, or Raymond Chandler, but God, who really is?

Terrifying, original and wonderful

The best audiobook I have listened to. I have read thousands of books in my life and listened to many and I actually think this is one if not THE best book I have listened to. New topic, riveting all the way. I actually forwarded this one, it was accepted, and they loved it.