Paranoia

by Joseph Finder (Goodreads Author)

book data

854 ratings, 3.63 average rating, 166 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		18%
4		40%
3		28%
2		10%
1		1%

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published

2008 by Luitingh (first published 2004)

details

Paperback

characters

Adam Cassidy

description

Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice …more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,225)

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Jul 08, 2008

Bernadette rated it:

(review of isbn 0312992289)

bookshelves: crime-fiction, dnf, wish-i-hadnt-read

Read in October, 2008

If there is such a thing as chic lit then maybe there should also be a genre called Bloke Books into which I could place this one. I was enjoying the somewhat predictable but never-the-less action-packed plot about espionage in the apparently cut-throat world of Silicon Valley. However in the end (well page 132 to be precise) I couldn't get past the stereotyped, clunky characterisations. I don't think there's a woman alive who would do anything other than groan at this ridiculous sentence, used ...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

1 comment

Jan 22, 2008

Robert Beveridge rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: finished, owned-and-gave-away

Read in January, 2004

Joseph Finder, Paranoia (St. Martin's, 2004)

Joseph Finder (High Crimes, recently made into a movie)'s fifth novel is something different. Something new. From the looks of things, Finder wanted to take aspects of literature-and I'm not talking your basic modern 20th century "literary" novel here, I'm talking lit-rat-chaw-and apply it to the technothriller. Certainly as risky as anything his protagonist, Adam Cassidy, comes up with during the novel. And how does he succeed? Ver...more Joseph Finder, Paranoia (St. Martin's, 2004)

Joseph Finder (High Crimes, recently made into a movie)'s fifth novel is something different. Something new. From the looks of things, Finder wanted to take aspects of literature-and I'm not talking your basic modern 20th century "literary" novel here, I'm talking lit-rat-chaw-and apply it to the technothriller. Certainly as risky as anything his protagonist, Adam Cassidy, comes up with during the novel. And how does he succeed? Very well, thank you, for the most part.

Finder does for the technothriller what Hammett did for the mystery novel, though he's still something of a neophyte in places. Paranoia is a shining example of the idea that literate subtlety will always beat straight genre writing, no matter what the genre.

Adam Cassidy is your basic punk. He spends his free time drinking and doing drugs, and his work hours trying to find ways to do as little as possible. He feels more comfortable hanging out with the loading dock crew than he does in his cubicle at Wyatt Industries, being a low-level marketing goon. Because of that, when the loading dock foreman gets ready to retire, Cassidy decides to screw his company and give the guy the best possible send-off, so he pulls a couple of the appropriate numbers and gets the affair catered. Problem is, he's not quite aware of the scope of the catering, and when the bill hits the desk, Cassidy's head is about to roll. Nick Wyatt, the almost cartoonishly evil chairman of the company, gives Cassidy a choice-either go to jail for embezzlement or go to work for their main competitor, Trion Systems, and get the dirt on a top-secret Trion project. Needless to say, Cassidy chooses the latter, or we wouldn't have a novel.

Paranoia grabs you from the beginning and refuses to let go. As with any competent thriller, techno or otherwise, the plot and the pacing are strong, but that's not where the true strength of Finder's book lies. He uses subtle tricks to give insight into the characters, couches his moral lessons in dialogue (they do scrape close to the surface at times, but nothing hits you in the face with a dead haddock), and generally turns the whole thing into the kind of technothriller that Frederick Exley or Barry Hannah might have written, had they the inclination.

I was struck at first with the idea that the book's use of profanity was gratuitous, but once I figured out what Finder was doing, I took a second look and realized he was working with the precision of a jeweler. Every time you think the prose seems a little off kilter, profane or not, take another look. There's more under the surface than there seems to be. What this results in is characters drawn more strongly here than in almost any modern fiction; if Stephen King is the undisputed master of drawing characters in a few lines, Finder has quickly become the main understudy.

So why am I not hailing this the most brilliant novel to come down the pike since Kathe Koja last released something? Because I'm still not sure about the ending. I got to the bottom of page 423, turned it over, fully expecting there to be a few more sentences, and... blank space. I practically growled at the book. (I simultaneously can't wait to see and dread what Hollywood is going to do to the end of this when it gets filmed. And for the record, no one but Brian Dennehy can possibly play Nick Wyatt.) Given everything I've said above, I get the feeling I missed something along the way in that last chapter, but there's a part of me that thinks Finder tried the classic ambiguous ending, another literary risk, and it just didn't go as smoothly as the other highbrow tricks that make this novel so incredible. As it stands, the novel doesn't have loose ends, it's got an Oriental rug that comes unraveled all at once. Expect to spend a good deal of time mulling over the ending. You probably won't get anywhere, but you'll do it anyway.

As with all good thrillers, Finder packs a whole lot of twists, turns, red herrings, blue herrings, mysterious gurus, father figures, and a whole plethora of wonderful minor characters (Antwoine deserves his own book, to be sure) into these pages. Don't let the ending stop you. Read this. **** (less)

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Aug 11, 2007

Andrew rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in August, 2007

Tightly constructed plot, but little else going for it. I'll admit that halfway through, the book hooked me and I couldn't put it down, but it reads like a cheap Hollywood thriller - no character development, half-realized characters, and stilted dialogue. The ending in particular is easy to see coming, and then the book just stops, allowing little resolution. What resolution is there is undercut by the main character acting out of what little character you've managed to divine. A fine summe...more

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Aug 26, 2009

Steven Kent rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: features-an-evil-republican, light-reading

My wife and I had sharply differing opinions on this one. She absolutely loved... she loved it so much, in fact, that she practically insisted that I read it.

I don't mind Joseph Finder. I read another novel by him and found it more competent, good in fact, just not my cup of tea.

I had the same basic response to Paranoia.

The story begins with a low-level management type forging names and faking identities to rip off his company and throw an unauthorized ...more

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Jun 28, 2009

Tony rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Joseph Finder- Paranoia (Audio Book-Unabridged) (St. Martin’s 2004) 3.5 Stars

Adam Cassidy hates his job and he bends the rules for a friend. To avoid jail he becomes a cooperate spy for his boss, getting information from Trion. At Trion he becomes a hotshot and flies up the ranks quickly. Suddenly he finds himself in over his head and discovers that everything may not be as it seems.
Paranoia has a great plot that catches your attention and there are several good twists. Alth...more

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Jan 09, 2010

Jaime rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: suspense-thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 09, 2008

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: 2008-read, mystery-crime-fiction-thriller, mystery-talks-selection

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone

PARANOIA is a corporate thriller, filled with tense action, intrigue and colorful characters. A ne'er-do-well corporate flunky finds himself thrust into industrial espionage to escape an embezzlement charge and finds that once you're in, there is no easy way out. Finder hits all the right notes with his examination of corporate politics and the mystery is first-rate, right down to the twisty ending that few will see coming.

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Oct 06, 2009

Lisa rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in September, 2009

Finder did a great job writing about high-tech companies in general, although I don't know about intrigue at the level he writes about in the book.

To give a general plot summary with as few spoilers as possible, the main character, Adam Cassidy, does a Bad Thing at his job with Company A. CEO at Company A decides to turn him loose as a corporate spy at Company B, which is the main competitor to Company A. Cassidy is to report back with anything and everything he finds.

D...more

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Jul 15, 2009

Don rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in July, 2009

Hey budding authors! Do you want to read a book that has pages of cliches, popular names, products, chilling and scintillating narrative such as "He sounded like he'd just found a turd in his Cracker Jack box" [K 7865:] or "She was wearing a Fred Perry shirt and she had...bodacious ta-tas" [K 2550:]

Ok, this tops it - the single worst book I have read in over 25 years. How a publisher let this book through is a complete and total disgrace to the writer's communi...more

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Jul 15, 2009

Dad rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in July, 2009

I read this because it was free. It's not often you get a free book. I read all my books on an Amazon Kindle and for some reason or other they've begun offering free books. I had never heard of the writer or the book, but I gave it a shot anyway. It turns out it was a terrific page turner. It concerns one Adam Cassidy whose a total slacker at a high tech electronics company. He screws up in such a way the company threatens him with jail. But he' such a good BS artist they blackmail ...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it (review of isbn 0312319142)

Paranoia, packed with twists, turns, status details, and high-tech gobbledygook, moves with a John Grisham-like momentum. Finder's fifth novel has already been optioned for film, for good reason. Many reviewers were won over by the narrator's likeable voice, and empathized with his sweat-inducing ethical dilemmas. Yes, the novel is a bit clich_�d, the characters are cardboard, and much of the action takes place behind a computer desk. But overall, it's an entertaining page-turner. Unless you're

...more

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Aug 09, 2009

Laura rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: kindle-version

Read in August, 2009

Meet Adam Cassidy. He works at a fairly low-level job for a high-tech company with deep pockets. It's a big company and Adam believes he'll escape notice when he diverts some company funds into a party for a co-worker. He's mistaken, of course, and the mistake pitches him into the role of a corporate spy in a rival company. Adam isn't keen on fulfilling that role, but his alternative is prosecution and jail time. He does his employer's bidding, and from there the story takes off.

It's...more

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Nov 29, 2009

Patty rated it:

(review of other edition)

Read in November, 2009

It is amazing what I will read on my Kindle if it is free. I have found some not so good books, but also some I have really enjoyed. And classics are a no brainer for the Kindle. All in all it is a good way to try some new authors.

Paranoia is definitely not my typical book. I am not into spies and suspense - the books that get many peoples' hearts racing. All they do for me is make me anxious. I want to know that everything works out at the end.

That said, I did get c...more

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Sep 26, 2009

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: 2009-reads, challenge-fall-2009, fiction, free-books, mystery, read-as-e-books

Read in October, 2009

I gave this book 4 stars because I enjoyed it, it was relatively fast-paced, and it was free on my Kindle.

I don't say this is any great work of literature. In fact, it reads like a not-quite edited version that managed to sneak out. The pacing was completely weird - there were parts of the book that seemed to drag on and on, but then some parts ended quite suddenly. I was pretty disappointed in the ending; I didn't really like what happened and the last plot twist seemed pretty obvio...more

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7 comments

Jul 14, 2009

Michelle rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

This was enormous fun; a thriller that was actually . . . thrilling, and had some surprises. Well, toward the end I have to say I figured most of it out, but until then, he had me going, and even so, he had me going. A perfect beach book though I read it at home, and once I started to read, it was hard to put down. A far better summer book than Commencement, which was fun and had its good, feminist parts, but is totally amateurish in comparison (but then, that author only works for the NYT; Jose...more

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Jan 08, 2010

Pam rated it:

(review of isbn 1559279834)

Read in January, 2010

I did enjoy this book, a nice change of pace - full of business espionage & tensions but.... personally I could've done without the plethora of expletives. Though I suppose they're are a little more evident with the audio version, with a paperback you could skim them a little more perhaps.

Lots of tech-y jargon too, though I think they explain most of it pretty well for those who don't already know what it all is. Dates itself a little bit by mentioning the Nintendo Gamecube as bein...more

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Jan 02, 2009

Bill rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: fiction, thriller

Read in January, 2007

Finder's style initially put me off. His style is distinct from other writers in this genre. I would say quirky and off-beat. A dark thread of humor runs through his work. Paranoia was my first exposure to Finder. About 100 pages in, I nearly stopped for good. But, I persisted and am glad I did. I began to catch up to his style and, by the end of the book, was in sync with him. I was motivated to read some of his other work - and will continue to read him. This is the story of an office worker w...more

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Aug 12, 2009

Cheryl rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in August, 2009

iTunes gave this book away as a free download. I didn't think I'd get to it for awhile. I didn't know enough about it to do anything but add it as a "just in case you've got nothing to listen to" kind of book.

But, wow....

If you're looking for a mystery with intense business espionage, you've come to the right place. This is full of shady white collar crime. Then there is blackmail. How would you like it if you were forced into a never ending secretive spyin...more

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Jul 20, 2009

Matt Howard rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

Read in July, 2009

Reader reviews of this work tend to emphasize the twist ending and the suspense. I wish there were a rating lower than one star. This is the tale of a pathetic, amoral, loser who finds himself blackmailed by his company's CEO after embezzling from the company to pay for a friend's retirement party. It is poorly written, filled with unbelievable happenstance, wooden characters, and the ending is predictable ten pages after the protagonist goes to work for his employer's main competitor where he i...more

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Aug 08, 2009

Sharon rated it:

(review of isbn 0312940912)

bookshelves: favorites

Read in July, 2009

This was a FANTASTIC story! Those unfamiliar with work life in Corporate America may not appreciate this and may not catch many of the references that are every day life to those of us who work at large corporations.

For more than the last decade I have worked where there were more than 60,000 employees and I found myself recognizing work cultures from my own experiences and laughing out loud many times. It is a great, fun, quick read and absolutely a page turner!

Definitel...more

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