Rating: 
Summary: ABSORBING, DRAMATIC READINGS
Review: "Until the whole thing happened, I never believed the old line about how you should be careful what you wish for, because you might get it." "Believe it now" And so begins Joseph Finder's dazzling thriller peopled with dynamite characters and an engrossing plot line. The protagonist is Adam Cassidy, a normal, garden variety 26-year-old employed by Wyatt Telecommunications. As with all he has a flaw - cheating. Ousted from college for trying to alter his records to change his grades he now schemes to impersonate an upper level manager to foot the bill for a $78,000 retirement party. As Adam says, "Generally people like me. I'm pretty good at winning them over - the pissed off math teacher, the enterprise customer whose order is six weeks overdue, you name it." But now it's pay-up time. Film, television and stage actor Jason Priestley gives an absorbing, dramatic reading of this tale on the Abridged CD edition. He invests Adam with the proper amount of bravado and, at the appropriate times, fear. Scott Brick, winner of seven Earphones Awards and the 2003 Addie Award for Best Science Fiction, gives the same high level performance that we've come to expect from him on the audio cassette version. When Adam is caught for his impersonation Nicholas Wyatt, founder and CEO of Wyatt Telecommunications, gives him a choice - prison or become a spy and infiltrate their main competitor, Trion Systems. Which would you choose? There's high powered drama and exciting listening to be found with "Paranoia." - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: Finder Winner (that's a pun, not a typo!)
Review: While every Finder book has been worth the wait, this one is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Wow! I'm an avid reader of thrillers who lately has become bored by the genre. Baldacci, Kellerman, the Ludlum ghost-writers, and many others have been boring the pants off me. But when I saw Finder's name on the cover of this book, a little charge went off inside my head. No two books from this author have been alike in content, but they all share the same trait. Readability with a twist. I loved Paranoia and read it in two days. Considering that I have a full-time job, help out a lot with my children and household chores, and was whacked by another driver today...that says something about how much this book entered into my psyche. A page-turner with humor, suspense, romance, action, and surprises. I wish I could it read again, and envy every first-time Finder reader who discovers the author. They're in for a treat!
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling From Start To Finish
Review: Joseph Finder's Paranoia is an exciting tale of corporate espionage from start to finish. Yes unlike some of the other reviewers on this page, I find the ending not so predicatable. It also leaves the door open for a possible sequel. The story depicts Adam Cassidy, a disenchanted engineer who gets caught manipulating the company security system. He gets forced into becomming a spy on the competition. At this point he gets lured into many moments of a false sense of security. Yes he is pampered with many luxuries. However, Adam must always look around to cover himself. Nonetheless, the many relationships he forms with the employees of the company that he is spying on is quite thought provoking. Most touching is Cassidy's relationship with his ailing father. Adam tries to please his father by showing him what great luxuries he has at his disposition. However, his father cautions Adam to the reality that the coporation owns and controls his life. Adam almost overlooks this bottomline situation. Joseph Finder writes in a clear but detailed manner and keeps his audience hooked at many junctures of this very thrilling novel. Whereas there are great similarities to The Firm and Disclosure, the execution of this story is at least as captivating as those other two novels if not more so. The rumour I hear is that this novel will be made into a film in the not so distant future. If so, Paranoia may become a cultural event. At the moment it is certainly a cutting edge novel that is deservedly flying up the Best Sellers List. Take my advice and seek out this novel right away.
Rating: 
Summary: the price of innocence!
Review: Rebeccasreads recommends PARANOIA as a grand corporate scare of blackmail & espionage, honor & choices. What a rollercoaster!
Rating:
Summary: Loved It!
Review: Be careful what reviews you read on this page, as at least one will ruin the ending for you. It's one of the longer reviews.
This is not only an exciting thriller, but a touching account of a father-son relationship very well expressed. It was a nice contrast to the main page-turning storyline.
I loved this book from the "grabs you" beginning to its thought provoking ending, and have my husband, brother and friends buying their own copies so we can discuss it.
No slow parts, engaging characters, thrilling story. You won't be able to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read with a disappointing ending
Review: I really enjoyed the first 400 pages of this book. But darn it if the ending didn't disappoint. I couldn't figure out how the author was going to end the book and I'm afraid he couldn't quite figure it out either and so he invoked that hoary old bogeyman - the rich businessman who callously manipulates the lives of those around him to accomplish his goal of enriching himself and gaining more power. It was just a bit too cynical for me and a HUGE stretch. So many of the inconsistencies that I'd hoped would be resolved were left either unexplained or unsatisfactorily resolved. But I did enjoy the characters and as I said the story for the first 400 pages. Not a small accomplishment. When our protagonist, Adam Cassidy, gets caught throwing a party with company funds he gets busted and enlisted by the CEO of his company to spy on the competition. The scene where he is trying to talk his way out of his crime with the head of security was truly hilarious. I woke my wife up at 5:00 am to read it to her. The situations he finds himself in spying are quite nerve racking, but he always manages to just get away with it. He falls in love with an extraordinary woman at the new company he's spying on and improbably continues to betray those he's come to like. He gets himself in so deep that the reader simply can't imagine how he's going to get himself out. But that OK, neither did the author. Despite its deficiencies I'd still recommend this book as an enjoyable read.
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Summary: Original and exciting...A MUST read!
Review: Adam Cassidy is stuck in a major rut with his life...he parties too hard, hates his job and when he tries to do a favor for a friend he ends up charged with a crime. Wyatt Telecom's head of security has given Adam two choices: go to prison or become a spy in the headquarters of their leading competitor, Trion Systems. Adam makes the only choice he can, become a spy and supply Nicholas Wyatt the information he is looking for. Once Adam agrees to Wyatt's terms he is put through a rigid training program that will teach him how to act, show him what to wear and supply him with the information needed to successfully land the job at Trion. Within days of being hired at Trion, Adam is butting heads with his supervisor, a cold, calculating battle-ax named Nora. After a couple of run-ins with Nora, Adam gets the news that he is being transferred until a strange twist of fate lands him the job as the assistant to Jock Goddard, the president of Trion Systems. Adam's new position gives him the opportunity to find the secret information Wyatt is looking, and when he finds top secret documents concerning a project called "Aurora" he knows he has hit pay dirt. With each passing day Adam realizes he is in over his head and the further he becomes involved with "Aurora" he faces unknown dangers in a world where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. 'Paranoia' is a pulse quickening thriller. From page one the reader is held captive by a spellbinding tale of deception, high-tech maneuvers and corporate greed. Great characters, non-stop action and surprising plot twists all blend masterfully in a novel that's a cross between Grisham's 'The Firm' and Crichton's 'Disclosure.' Joseph Finder has written several excellent novels, 'Paranoia', being his best yet, is destined for a spot on all the bestseller lists. Fans of up-all-night-page-turners should dive into this one as it's one of the best thrillers to come out in a long time. A MUST read! Nick Gonnella
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Summary: An Exciting, Fast-Paced Thriller --- A Sure Winner!
Review: I'm going to date myself here and recall a novel titled GLADIATOR-AT-LAW, written by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth and published in the late 1950s. Pohl and Kornbluth were quietly but remarkably prescient; this particular novel described a future where nations as we presently know them did not exist. Corporations --- that would be big business to you --- had basically taken over government functions and served as nation-states. There is much more to this fine novel, and after you read Joseph Finder's PARANOIA you should check it out. The reason is that PARANOIA is, in several ways, what Pohl and Kornbluth saw coming. Finder has made his reputation writing intelligent and gripping novels of international derring-do, as well as a nonfiction work covering the same topic --- and PARANOIA would seem to be a bit of a swerve into another direction. What Finder does in PARANOIA is substitute corporations for nations. Intelligence, research and secrets are as highly prized within corporations as they are within nations, maybe even more so. Wouldn't Bill Gates have loved to come up with the Microsoft equivalent of Apple's iPod a month or so before that toy was rolled out by Steve Jobs? For that matter, when one corporation attempts to swallow another, it may not be called a war, or an invasion. But what else, after all, is a "hostile takeover"? Adam Cassidy discovers the truth of all this up close and personally in PARANOIA. Cassidy is possessed of a canny intelligence, though he does not tax it to any great extent as he fills his hours working, as he describes it, as a "junior products line manager for routers" at Wyatt Telecom. "Junior telecom mana...zzzz..." One's eyes glaze over. And indeed, Cassidy's do too, as he sits in his cubicle, does his job, and passes the time. But when Cassidy pulls a benevolent but very costly prank on his employer, no one at Wyatt is laughing. Cassidy is given a no-brainer option: Wyatt Telecom is going to have him charged with embezzlement --- unless he agrees to take a job with Trion Systems, one of Wyatt's major competitors. The quid pro quo does not make sense at first blush. The motive behind the deal, however, is that Trion is working on a project so revolutionary and so secret that most of its own employees don't even know about it. Wyatt wants to find out what the project is and use it for its own purposes. Cassidy manages to obtain employment and is almost immediately in a quandary. He likes his new employer, as well as his new fellow employees --- especially a fetching young woman named Alana Jennings, who just happens to be working on the secret project. Cassidy is torn between the guilt associated with the duplicitousness of his actions within Trion and his desire to save himself from the charges that Wyatt Telecom is hanging over his head. He has no idea what he is really involved with, or how deeply. Readers of Finder's previous work will in no way be disappointed by the change of scenery in PARANOIA. Finder is a master of the "frog in the pot" school of suspense writing. He ratchets the suspense level upward incrementally, keeping the reader interested and moving things along faster and faster. By the time things are at a boil, the reader, without even knowing it, is three-quarters of the way through the novel and half a night is gone. It is no surprise that PARANOIA is already optioned for a film, or that the novel is to be translated into seven languages. This is an exciting, fast-paced work that will be a sure winner with fans of either espionage or corporate intrigue, not to mention Finder's burgeoning legion of readers. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating: 
Summary: betrayed
Review: Perhaps I am sort of a Polyanna, but after reading 99.9% of this novel I had a really good feeling about people and was looking forward to a really happy (but perhaps unrealistic?) ending. However, I was really pissed off with the ending. Perhaps the author could have had a few alternate endings (such as some movies released on DVD). I have to admit that this was an almost "can't put down" book. But I REALLY hated the ending. Oh well, maybe I look at the world through rose-colored glasses. I also hope that the next novel Mr. Finder writes is not in the first person.
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment--Not remotely realistic
Review: I had high hopes for this book. I read the first few pages, loved the dry, witty writing, and thought I was in for a good ride. Maybe the problem is that I work in the high tech industry as a recruiter, and from the very beginning, things that just would never in a million years happen ruined the story for me. It could have been so much better, but was just too over the top. First off, how could someone embezzle close to 80k and not realize, that A, it was that much money? and B, that there would be some problems? Stealing does usually result in jail! Then, Product managers, individual contributors, at Adam's level, don't make 175k. Add in all of his 'save the day' last minute discoveries, and I couldn't help groaning, especially at his ease in breaking into the office...just silly. Clearly the book was written to be a movie. It's too bad though because I think this author has talent, and is capable of much more.
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