Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374299491
ISBN: 0374299498
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2008-04-01
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: 2008-04-01
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Customer Rating:
Summary: the finder; a loser...
Comment: Of all of Colin Harrison's excellent thrillers, 'The Finder' is the least plausible. It's as if this was his first novel before he became famous; and resubmitted now to turn a buck.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Brutally intelligent....
Comment: This book is not for the squeamish. There is so much going on that you wonder how Harrison keeps it all together, and keeps it all believable. But he does! It is a fascinating look into the different sub-cultures in New York and how closely they can be related, despite being completely different. It reminds me of a line from a Kirsty MacColl song "from an uptown apartment to a knife on the A train, it's not that far....".

I enjoyed "The Havana Room" but this one just blew me away. Despite being relatively short in length (which is a blessing considering every other book these days seems to be needlessly long) Harrison introduces two very complex characters, Ray and Jin Li. They are both simultaneously criminal yet compassionate. We seem to know what they are thinking, despite their complex pasts, and we root for them. The rest of the seemingly unrelated characters round out the circle beautifully, each one at once powerful yet vulnerable. The book is written with intelligence and realism.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Stock markets function on the quaint theory that they are effective
Comment: Colin Harrison writes intelligent thrillers w/o a serial hero, maybe except New York and the wonders of globalization.
I liked the Havana Room a lot, and the Finder has the additional attraction of a China connection. The plot doesn't need to be summarized again, that has been done by Amazon and other reviewers.
CH has the ability to tell a not so unusual story in a fresh and surprising way. He stays away from the cliches and the stereotypes that make me drop many thrillers on similar subjects lost in boredom.
I deduct a star because I am not 100% convinced that the plot driver here would work in real life: the office cleaning company as industrial spy agent who feeds investors half around the world with the info that they need to manipulate the share prices of small startup companies in Wall Street. Well, I don't know. Also, there are some minor blunders about things Chinese, eg his handling of names.
But he hits the right tone for me and his protagonists make sense. Even the Chinese ones, though Li Jin's brother bothered me a bit. He looked too simplistic at first glance (the supersmart but overexposed criminal stock manipulator from a formerly poor family), but then, if you look at the bios of similar real life men and women, they are like that apparently.
And the underworld is remarkably diversified. We also meet the more conventional business models of the Mafia and the Mexican drugring.
The suspense is fueled by more than one line of uncertainty: what is happening to Jin? who is her hero Ray, really? which of the different ethnic gangs is the most evil? possibly the local rich boy?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Lost and Found
Comment: My introduction to Colin Harrison began with Manhattan Nocturne followed by The Havana Room and then one of his earlier books, Break and Enter (which most of his readers didn't love yet I enjoyed immensely). So I'm definitely a fan and look forward to reading anything by him. I think I would put this one on par with The Havana Room.

I read this on a recent trip to Vegas on a flight that should have taken four hours and ended up taking seven with all of the runway delays. Consequently, the book was started and finished in that one trip. There's nothing I like better than books that keep you on the edge of your seat, even though this time I was wearing a seatbelt so I knew I was secure.

This novel explores the far reaching effects of crime as its tentacles reach as far as China where the wheels begin to turn in a scheme involving a cleaning service and stealing information. It's elaborate and well thought out and it will take a firefighter, in the form of Ray Grant, Jr., to get to the bottom of it. Yes, you heard me right....he's a firefighter but his father was a former NYC detective, whose days are now numbered as he wages his war with cancer.

Harrison is very adept at drawing out his characters and introducing new characters who add to the story as opposed to confusing it. This one gives us a good mix but it's Ray Grant and Jin-Li, his ex-girlfriend, who will lead the charge, trying not to be found in her case and trying to find her in his case.

Usually I would give this book five stars but there was just something missing that I can't exactly put my finger on. It was gritty and riveting but, in the end, it did not find me.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Harrison's Best in Awhile
Comment: "The Finder" isn't quite as good as Harrison's earliest books, but it is better than the "Havana Room" and an engaging read from the beginning. The story focuses on a young Chinese immigrant, who actively participates in a web of intrigues that turn to murder. Instead of being a conventional "woman in jeopardy", she is a woman who is able to draw on strength, as well as resources from a recently fizzled relationship. The story revolves mostly around her, but also includes her thuggish, businessman brother and her former boyfriend, the strong, but wounded Ray, along with Ray's father, some shadowy mob-type characters, and latter day counterparts to the "Wall Street"/"Bonfire of the Vanities" crowd. The story is tied up a little too neatly with a few too many cliches (hence 4 stars, instead of 5). Still, it got me interested in going wherever Harrison goes next.

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