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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Book Review - Buried Secrets - Joseph Finder - A Nick Heller Novel


Title:      Buried Secrets

Author:  Joseph Finder

Review:  This story grabbed me right off and I was hooked the rest of the time.  I love a good mystery/thriller and this is a good one.  Who done it and the rest is part of what makes this book a winner.

This book was faced paced and kept me reading into the night.  I wanted to know what would happen and if it was going to work out or not.  The idea that someone makes a mistake and actually takes the blame is brilliant and I would like to work with someone like that.  This authors characters are real and have flaws, no one is perfect on real life.

I would have given it a 5 star if the end of one character hadn't been so fast, he was a difficult person and then his demise was swift and why do the bad guys always feel the need to tell how they did everything and then end it? I did like that the real bad guy was extremely nasty, he made for someone you could really hate. My blood pumped harder at the end with not knowing who was going to come up on top. This story was exciting and scary as the author took the reader to many seedy places, and holes in Boston I would not want to venture into on purpose. Great descriptions of the area and having been to Boston recently I could really visualize the landscape.

Why are people the way they are and why are some of us so bad? Rich, poor, needy and scared, we all have more in common then we think and I like the way the author made everyone human in some way. To be super rich sounds great but then again a new set of problems emerges and so maybe not.

I like Nick and think he makes a great character for more books, Dorthy is also likable and unusual. This is a thriller with just a bit of romance added in the mix. Great story and I look forward to the next Nick Hiller story. I would suggest this to anyone who enjoys mystery/thrillers. Check out this book and his first in the series.

Publisher:  Expected publication: June 21st 2011 by St. Martin's Press

Copyright: 2011

Pages:  400 pages

ISBN: 0312379145

Quick Review:  4 Stars out of 5. 

Why I Read it:  I signed up for the giveaway on Goodreads, I love a good mystery.

Where I Obtained the Book:  I won the book on Goodreads.

Synopsis:  Joseph Finder introduced Nick Heller, a “private spy” who finds out things powerful people want to keep hidden, to widespread acclaim from the critics and wild enthusiasm from the readers, in the New York Times bestselling novel Vanished. Now, in Buried Secrets, Nick Heller returns, finding himself in the middle of a life-or-death situation that’s both high-profile and intensely personal.

Nick has returned to his old home town of Boston to set up his own shop. There he’s urgently summoned by an old family friend. Hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus desperately needs Nick’s help. His teenaged daughter, Alexa, has just been kidnapped. Her abduction was clearly a sophisticated professional job, done with extraordinary precision. Alexa, whom Nick has known since she was young, is now buried alive, held prisoner in an underground crypt, a camera trained on her, her suffering streaming live over the internet. She’s been left with a limited supply of food and water and, if her father doesn’t meet the demands of her shadowy kidnappers, she’ll die. And as Nick begins to probe, he discovers that all is not quite right with Marshall Marcus’s business. He’s being investigated by the FBI, he has a lot of shady investors, his fund is in danger and now he has a lot of powerful enemies who may have the motivation to go after Marcus’s daughter. But to find out who’s holding Alexa Marcus hostage, Nick has to find out why. Once he does, he uncovers an astonishing conspiracy that reaches far beyond anything he could have imagined. And if he’s going to find Alexa in time, he will have to flush out and confront some of his deadliest opponents ever.

Author Biography:  Joseph Finder’s plan was to become a spy. Or maybe a professor of Russian history. Instead he became a bestselling thriller writer, and winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel for KILLER INSTINCT (2006) and winner of the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller for COMPANY MAN (2005).

After taking a high school seminar on the literature and history of Russia, Joe was hooked. He went on to major in Russian studies at Yale, where he also sang with the school's legendary a cappella group, the Whiffenpoofs (and likes to boast that he sang next to Ella Fitzgerald, an honorary Whiffenpoof). Joe graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, then completed a master’s degree at the Harvard Russian Research Center, and later taught on the Harvard faculty. He was recruited to the Central Intelligence Agency but eventually decided he preferred writing fiction.

His first book, published in 1983 when Joe was only 24, was RED CARPET: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE KREMLIN AND AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL BUSINESSMEN, the first book to reveal that the controversial multi-millionaire Dr. Armand Hammer, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, had worked for Soviet intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s. (This book is no longer in print.)

Joe’s latest novel VANISHED, published August 2009 by St. Martin's Press and an immediate bestseller, introduced his new continuing character, "private spy" Nick Heller. Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator – exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man you call when you need a problem fixed. The second novel in the series, BURIED SECRETS, will be published June 21, 2011.

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2 comments:

  1. I think bad guys feel the need to share because they have such fantastically huge egos and want someone to appreciate his or her intelligence. AND the author needs a way to fill the gaps.

    Lol. Great review.

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