Company Man

A Novel

By: Joseph Finder

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Joseph Finder's New York Times best seller Paranoia was hailed by critics as "jet-propelled," the "Page Turner of the Year," and "the archetype of the thriller in its contemporary form."

Now Finder returns with Company Man - a heart-stopping thriller about ambition, betrayal, and the price of secrets.

Nick Conover, the son of a factory worker, is the CEO of a major corporation in a company town. Nick, once the most admired man in Fenwick, Michigan, is now, having presided over massive layoffs, the most despised. A single parent since the recent death of his wife, he's struggling to insulate his 10-year-old daughter and angry 16-year-old son from the town's hostility.

When his family is threatened by a nameless stalker, events spin quickly out of control and Nick is faced with a dead body and damning circumstances. To protect his family, he must cover up the homicide with the help of his old friend and corporate security director.

Now Audrey Rhimes, a police investigator with an agenda of her own, is determined to connect Nick to the homicide. In the meantime, Nick begins to unravel a web of intrigue within his own corporation, involving his closest colleagues, that threatens to gut the company and bring him down with it. With everything he spent his life working for hanging in the balance, Nick Conover discovers that life at the top is just one small step away from a long plunge to the bottom.

©2005 Joseph Finder (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

"A frightfully good suspense thriller." (Booklist)
"Mr. Finder's Company Man confirms what his Paranoia made clear: he has unusually keen instincts for back-stabbing in the business world. And somehow or other, exotica about the workings of a company that manufactures office furniture become unnaturally interesting here." (The New York Times)

Disappointing

Company Man is the story of Nick Conover, the CEO of Stratton Corp and the most hated man in a small company town because two years before he had to lay off half of the work force.

Bad things are happening to Nick starting with the death of his wife a year earlier in a car crash. His teenage son is a pot-head Goth wannabe. His ten year old daughter while still worshiping her father cries for her mother. Nick can't cope.

Although the Conovers live in a patrolled gated community someone has been writing disturbing graffeti and the family dog has been killed and dumped in the pool. The police don't seem to care. Nick is scared for his family's safety.

There's a lot here to make for a good story but we are instead presented with what I call "the stupid principal". The stupid principal means that the entire story unfolds because someone does something stupid.

In the middle of the night Nick is awakened by his alarm system, just put in by his head of security. He sees a man, zombie-like, coming towards his house. What does Nick do? Call the cops? Call his security head? Call anybody? No. Nick grabs a gun, also supplied by his head of security, rushes outside, orders the supposed intruder, who hasn't set foot in his house, to stop and shoots him dead when he doesn't comply.

What does Nick do next? Call the cops? No. He calls his head of security and they cover it up. Now, bear in mind that Nick is the good guy, the protagonist of the story. There is no indication that he's a "bad guy". He's just stupid. The stupid CEO of a major company.

Things get worse. If Nick is presented with a choice he does the most stupid thing available.

Who would have thought to write a book populated by the idiot good guy hero? This book is amazingly frustrating.

I enjoyed Paranoia very much. This book is a let down.

A fun book

Enjoyed the story will try other books by this author. Scott Brick awesome as always.

way to long

This book was way to long and drawn out. Seemed to go on forever and not get anywhere.

Dragged Out Action...Cliched Characters

Finder?s first book, Paranoia, was set in a corporation filled with one-dimensional reptilian characters who screw themselves with their own greed. Fun! Anyone who works in a corporation can appreciate the situations and irony. Company Man is more ambitious. It reaches for characters that have deeper emotional motivations, back-stories, and development?mostly unsuccessfully. Do you ever cringe when you listen to books because the dialogue is painfully clich?d? Or peeved because the writing is so predictable you feel talked down to? Well, Company Man may make you feel this way more than once. The characters are not believable and often offensively simplistic. Stock players include ?the religious baptist?, ?the crazy?, ?the jock?, ?the stoner?. I found myself wincing and fast forwarding. The plot was also very simple and transparent?you know who did what very early on, and you can?t believe the main character wouldn?t have seen it, too. I never thought I'd say this, but the abridged version might be better!

No comparison with the first book

I agree with a lot of the other critics which liked the first book. This one is really booing. I listen to 2 hours and feel like not finishing it. To those which hated this one and have not read the
other book: Paranoia I suggest reading it.

B o r i n g . . .

Add me to the group which enjoyed Paranoia a lot but found this novel tedious and boring. I listened to about a third of it before I gave up. It moved at a glacial pace and I could not summon any feelings for the main characters. The abridged edition might very well be the way to go!

just couldn't get past the dog killing

I probably didn't give this book enough chance since so many rated it highly, but when the kid's dog ends up gutted in the pool, I could go no farther. It was ho hum up until then.

Too Boring For Me

I don't normally write and online review but I have to say something about this one. If you just have to read this book get the abridged version. This book drags on forever, and nothing about it seems to hold my interest. I finally made it through it but I don't know how. Boring Boring Boring. I really enjoyed his book Paranoia but I will be had pressed to ever pay good money for another of his books.