Customer Reviews

Final Target (Graham Gage)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Final Target

This first novel has all the ingredients of a literary gourmet meal. The complexity of the story line keeps the reader wanting more and the author keeps leading the reader down a path with bread crumbs spiked with twists and turns that keep rolling back on themselves. Like fly on a spider's web in the forest, I was caught in the intrigue, knowing I had no choice but succumb to the intricacies of the web. The 'bad guys' will fool you, the 'good guys' will inspire you and it is best to order take out, because you won't put it down until you are done.

I fly a lot; and until I bought a Kindle, I am sure my contributions to the thriller market kept more than a few authors in Scotch and cigarettes. Last week, I was going through MIA, and I lost my Kindle. Fortunately, they still have bookstores and authors like Steve Gore.

Final Target saved my trip. As I was battling the jet stream back to the Coast, Gore's prose was soaring through the stratosphere, above the turbulence of the usual airplane thriller. No returning Nazis, swarthy South American, or characters retired, or cashiered from the Alphabet soup of "secret" government service. Instead the book focuses on the adventures of a private investigator, Graham Gage, in his attempt to absolve his friend, an edge walking lawyer who the prosecutors think has jumped over the line.

The book is a cut above the usual thriller. The characters are believable and the background is intelligent, and I still kept turning the pages. Even the denouement did not depend upon a suspension of disbelief. In this day of Bernie Madoff and corporate criminality, Gore's constructions are entirely believable, as well as entertaining.

I was left with only one question. If the life of a private eye is so entertaining, why did Gore leave it go into writing? No matter how that riddle is answered, (is Gore just another elaborate pseudonym for James Frey?) the reader should just suspend disbelief, jump in and enjoy.

Steven Gore drew upon his years as a private investigator to present a great fictional story. As someone who has been in the investigation business for over 30 years I found Gore's presentation to be right on. He was able to weave a great thriller of a story while giving the reader a real insider's view of what it is like to be a private investigator.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading a book full of suspense and intrigue. I hope this will just be the first in a series of books for Gore.

A chance to be thoroughly entertained by corporate greed on an international scale with interesting and complicated rubes, gangsters, villains and heroes. And, you get to do some vicarious sightseeing around the world. It's a great book by someone who obviously knows about and makes sense of the complexities of the world and people of which he writes. Can't wait for the next one.

Steven Gore is a private investigator whose work has required him to wear seven-league boots. He has testified in courtrooms around the world, and if his debut novel is any indication, he did much more than shuttle from airports to lawyers' offices and back again. FINAL TARGET is informed with an on-the-street immediacy that puts the reader in the middle of the action, whether in an interrogation room in San Francisco or a restaurant in Ukraine.

FINAL TARGET has been announced as the first in a series of novels featuring high-powered investigator Graham Gage. Things get off to a rousing start, first with the murder of a young woman that is explained later --- much later --- in the book, then with a second attack on a jogger that leaves the man comatose. The jogger is Jack Burch, the principal partner of an international law firm located in San Francisco. This attack by firearm is initially thought to be road rage, but Gage, who is not only one of Burch's clients but also one of his best friends, thinks otherwise.

The U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't really care; if Burch emerges from his coma, a hungry attack dog named William Peterson is waiting to indict him. Peterson, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco, is pursuing the case of his career, one that involves a corporation named SatTek Industries, which has gone belly-up, leaving its baffled stockholders holding an empty bag where hundreds of millions of dollars were once upon a time. Peterson is convinced that Burch assisted the officers of SatTek in setting up some shell corporations and offshore bank accounts in order to launder money obtained from stockholders as well as from the proceeds of the sale of dual-use technology to the government of Ukraine. Gage is doing double duty for his friend, trying to determine who wanted him killed and gathering evidence that will either clear Burch's name or, at the least, prevent him from being arrested if he makes it back to this side of the veil.

Gage uncovers quite a bit, enough that he wonders if in fact his friend is guilty of at least some of the things for which Peterson is about to seek an indictment. But Gage knows Burch too well to truly believe that he would do anything illicit, and ultimately finds that Burch is being set up as a result of a plea-bargaining agreement that will leave Burch as a high-profile target. Gage, however, is not without resources of his own. With the assistance of a savvy set of operatives in both San Francisco and Ukraine, Gage sets up a sting that will see that his friend remains a free man --- if he can stay alive --- and that justice is done.

Gore paints FINAL TARGET on a huge, truly global canvas, one that stretches from the west coast of the United States to the rough countryside of Ukraine and back again. One gets the feeling that Gore has more than dabbled in the topics that he writes about, given his easy familiarity in relating the hows and wheres and wherefores of what is happening on the printed page. The result is that FINAL TARGET is more plot-driven than character-driven. While that is not unfortunate, I would like to have gotten to know Gage a bit better; he seemed to be constantly in motion, though certainly events conspired to keep him that way. It will be worth reading ABSOLUTE RISK, the second in the series to be published later this year, to find out.

This one proves you can have have complicated characters and a complex plot while moving really fast and hard. Even the good guys are gray sometimes, and the dialog sounds right when it's funny. I like a character who's puzzling things out, knowing a lot but learning as he goes. I also think it's great that after mucking through dirt, blood, greed and high stakes murder, what he really needs is a few quiet minutes on the phone with his wife. Who thought that up!

I thoroughly enjoyed Final Target. It is a compelling mystery/thriller which I had a hard time putting down until I was finished reading it. It's a wonderful story of corporate fraud and the characters are interesting and well developed. I highly recommend it. Julie Houk

Steven Gore's "Final Target" is a page turner! One of those you are likely to read straight through. His protagonist, criminal investigator Graham Gage, is a keen witted puzzle solver capable of the occasional razzle dazzle. Gore's intelligent free flowing dialogue moves forward calmly and methodically without hackneyed plot turns or gratuitous violence and profanity. Final Target thrills and amuses, you'll love it!

One of the best things about finding a new author is the hope that there will be more great books after the first satisfying read. More, please, Steve Gore! Final Target meets all the mystery/suspense/crime book essential criteria: it's well written; it has interesting, multi-dimensional characters you'd like to hear from again; and the story is both well-paced and plausible. Plus, Steven Gore has the gift of credibility -- the dialogue and the observations about prosecutors, defense lawyers, and clients, sounds right. And he's funny. Add me to the list of people who stayed in bed until I finished the whole book.

I really enjoyed this book. The government is trying to nail a lawyer who is believed to be involved in securities fraud. The lawyer is shot but survives while other key individuals are killed. The lawyer has a friend who is a skilled private investigator. The investigator unravels all of the intricacies of the scheme and discovers it is ultimately bad guys trying to steal and sell military technology. I highly recommend this work. It was a great read.