Product Description

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 ten-year-old daughter and angry sixteen-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.

Product Details

• Published on: 2005-04-19
• Released on: 2005-04-19
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
Though Finder has written several novels—including one made into the film High Crimes—he hit bestseller lists in a big way only with last year's terrific Paranoia, so this follow-up can be considered a test of his consistency, critically and commercially. While it doesn't dazzle as Paranoia did, this is a solid, engrossing thriller that takes a few risks. Finder's primary risk is a protagonist who, while basically decent, is no paragon. Nick Conover, the youngish CEO of the Stratton Corporation, in Fenwick, Mich., has fired half of the high-end office furniture company's 10,000 employees at the bidding of new ownership in Boston. As a result, much of Fenwick hates Nick, including the person who has been breaking into his mansion and scribbling "No Hiding Place" on the walls, and who then kills the Conover family dog—presumably Andrew Stadler, a fired employee and erstwhile mental patient. When Stadler accosts Nick one night, Nick, panicking, shoots him dead, and then, under the influence of his shady corporate security director, covers up the crime. The two cops assigned to the murder prove dogged, sending Nick into a generally beleaguered state that's slightly alleviated by his new romance with, of all people, the daughter of the murdered man, but exacerbated considerably by his discovery that his Boston masters intend to sell Stratton to Chinese government interests. A thriller like this rides on its characters, and Finder creates full-blooded ones here. As in Paranoia, his understanding of byzantine corporate politics is spot on, and the novel's pacing is strong, with steady suspense. Credibility wavers as Finder heaps Job-like trials upon Nick and then ends the book on an optimistic note, but there are few thriller fans who won't stay up to finish this assured tale.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Nick Conover is the CEO of a Midwestern furniture company and a decent guy, but he is beset by personal and professional problems mostly beyond his control. Scott Brick, a seasoned reader, knows just how to keep you on the edge of your seat with this one. He captures Nick's niceness and vulnerability, the corporate raiders' duplicity, his security chief's moral bankruptcy, the plight of the dogged African-American female detective, and a host of other folks who may or may not be trustworthy. His warm voice convinces you that everything will indeed turn out okay. Good "company" for a long road trip! J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Finder follows his latest corporate espionage best-seller, Paranoia (2003), with a thriller that, while still set in the business world, is distinctly smaller in scale. The novel's tension centers on the hero's ethical conflict between saving his small company and laying off workers he's known since he was a kid. Nick Conover has risen from working-class origins to the position of CEO of a metal-bending company in a Grand Rapids-like town in Michigan. He has also fallen from the status of well-liked employer to that of despised boss, thanks to layoffs and outsourcing. As the book opens, Conover is dealing with personal as well as business crisis: he's a recent widower, with a preteen daughter and a teenage son, both with a palimpsest of problems; meanwhile, his house is regularly broken into and spray-painted with the words "No Hiding Place." His life keeps sinking: a deranged man breaks into the house, Conover kills him, and his longtime pal talks him into burying the body. More sickeningly suspenseful tail-diving follows, as police work demonically to tie Conover to the homicide. Finder overdoes it a bit with detail--like many hyper-realists, he has a tendency to count the knives and forks--but even so, he's written a frightfully good suspense thriller. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

High Stakes and Nowhere to Run
Nick Conover is the CEO of Stratton Inc. a company that makes office furniture in Fenwick, Michigan. He's lost his wife in an auto accident, so he's bringing up his two children alone. He's had to lay off about half his workers due to Chinese competition and bad economic times and because the company was the largest employer in town, it has made him pretty unpopular.

Person or persons unknown start vandalizing his house, someone is stalking him and then a deranged former employee breaks into his house. In a panic, Nick shoots him, then gets the company security advisor to help him cover up the crime.

Enter Police Inspector Audrey Rhimes. She is good at her job and finds out things at both Conover's work place and home are not as they seem to be, plus it would seem she has an axe to grind as her husband was laid off from Stratton and he has buried himself in the bottle. If Audrey digging into his life isn't bad enough, the new owners of Stratton are plotting behind Nick's back, so Nick's job and financial future are in jeopardy, not to mention his freedom, his sanity, his life and the lives of his children.

There is action a plenty in this story, red herrings galore, characters who live and breath, tension, suspense and more tension. This is one thriller that is very, very hard to put down. Can you tell I liked it?

Review Submitted by Captain Katie Osborne