Customer Reviews

The Finder: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Those of you who remember movies like "Naked City" or fancy the noir crime thrillers of the late 1940s will feel immediately at home with Colin Harrison's "The Finders", which is frankly one of the best urban noir novels I've read in years.

New York, with its endless contrasts between rich and poor, elegance and crass, conflicting cultures all trying to get their piece of the American pie is the perfect setting for noir fiction and Harrison, a Brooklynite, plays it for all its worth. And, man, does he ever do it well!

In the high-rise office towers of Manhattan where "Masters of the Universe" contend for billions, young illegal Mexicans scurry about cleaning the detritus of the business at night under the supervision of Jin Li, a young, beautiful Chinese woman. Jin Li is more than she appears to be. She is, in fact, a key player in a global power play, something that becomes apparent when she takes an after work, middle of the night ride with two of her Mexican female workers. They part in a remote Brooklyn park when disaster in the form of truck bearing a load of excrement comes on the scene.

Jin Li escapes death and is pursued by a growing cast of characters. The good guy is Ray Grant, Jr., Jin Li's recent lover who still pines for her. Grant, Jr. is backed by his father, who is dying of cancer, a near-retirement NYPD detective and that's it. Against them and Jin Yi is a surprising number of bad guys, all of whom Harrison introduces flawlessly, each one racheting up the suspense level.

There are few writers with Harrison's skill and the ability to keep layering on plot twists. It is a delight to watch as we are introduced to Bill Martz, Tom Reilly, Chen, Victor, Richie, Violet, Montoya, Elliott and more, each contributing their bit of evil to the story without tripping over some other character.

Harrison deftly builds his main characters like Jin Li, Ray Grant, Jr., Bill Martz, Chen and the others largely through backstories and flashbacks. In less adept hands, this technique could be disastrous, but Finder pulls it off beautifully.

The suspense builds with each page as these characters pulled literally from different universes come together on a collision course. The ending is a bit of a stretch, but still totally acceptable.

If you like noir, you will love "The Finders". If you like suspense, crime or thriller novels, "The Finders" will have you turning pages. It is simply one of the best I've read in a while.

Jerry

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?

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.

Colin Harrison specializes in "literary thrillers" -- his novels are essentially works of suspense, but he spends a huge amount of time developing his characters and describing the realities of urban life. I've read a few of his novels, including his debut BREAK AND ENTER (awful) and THE HAVANA ROOM (very good). I think that THE FINDER is the best Harrison novel I've read so far.

THE FINDER is a relatively fast-paced novel about a complicated business scheme to steal confidential business information. Something goes wrong, leading to a series of murders and other violent incidents. The plot is remarkably silly if you take the time to think about it, but Harrison is a good enough writer to make things believable and compelling.

Some people have compared this work to BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and I find that a very apt comparion. In many ways, the story simply serves as an excuse for Harrison to introduce a multitude of characters in New York City and describe (usually in minute detail) how they perceive the world. Even the minor supporting characters get this treatment, which will either delight or exasperate the reader. For the most part, I was delighted by Harrison's descriptions, which seemed highly cynical yet true to life.

Harrison is also interested in how things work -- are you curious about how a gas station makes money? Or how documents are disposed of by large corporations? Harrision spend pages of THE FINDER describing these processes in great detail. I found this material fascinating, but I'm guessing that other readers will find themselves bored.

In the end, I found this novel highly entertaining, despite the lack of a truly sympathetic character (a character named Ray Grant comes closest, although he's a bit of a cliche). Harrison is an incredibly gifted writer, and I recommend this novel to people who enjoy books that take the time to fully flesh out their characters and situations.

"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.

This was my first Harrison thriller but I was positively surprised by how much I liked it. I live in NYC and its always nice to read about about New York even though I live here because it is the best city in the world. Harrison who also lives here knows all the down and dirty things about this city and its mix of amazing characters. The book starts off with a truly shocking murder that at once repulses but also fascinates because we all know that truly sick people live in this world and some of them have thought about actually doing something like this. While the mystery aspect almost takes a backseat to the characterizations of the people, the ending is satisfying and even a little profound. I will read "Bodies Electric" next (which for some reason is not in print right now and I had to buy it used) .

There is a vignette in THE FINDER, Colin Harrison's latest novel, that is worth buying and reading the whole book for. Actually, there are several --- several dozen --- but let's talk about just one right now. It involves two men, both named Ray Grant (one Jr., one Sr.). Sr. is an ex-NYPD detective who is dying from the inside out of cancer. He wants Jr., a somewhat enigmatic, extremely capable guy, to help him end it all. Jr. refuses, for what seems like a selfish reason: he wants as much time with Sr. as possible. I've given nothing away here (I hate when people do that, even with the best of intentions, don't you?), but pay close attention to this exchange. It becomes very important later. And, like the rest of THE FINDER, it is an incredibly well-told tale, perfect in every way.

Harrison does not publish often --- about every three or four years is his cycle --- so that, no doubt out of consideration for his audience, he writes stand-alone books instead of series. You won't find yourself wondering how the cast is going to stop a runaway train at the conclusion of one of his novels, which frees him up a bit. He can end a book any way he pleases because you won't see the characters again. Accordingly, he has had some of the darkest endings I can remember reading. It's what comes between the beginning and the end, however, that's important. What Harrison does, to superior effect, is take a bunch of disparate folks, put them to cross-purposes at each other and watch what happens. In the case of THE FINDER, it's quite a bit.

In addition to the two Rays, the book introduces Jin-Li, a young Chinese woman who is the head of a New York City document disposal service with a very select clientele. She is also the ex-girlfriend of Ray Jr. Jin-Li has a brother, Chen, in mainland China who is able to make warehouses full of money thanks to Jin-Li, in a way that will have you shaking your head in admiration while trembling with fear. Jin-Li has a client, Good Pharma, whose nominal head, Tom Reilly, discovers that the small pharmaceutical company has been adversely affected by Chen and Jin-Li. In the unfortunate choice of words to the wrong person, he sets a number of disastrous chains of events in motion.

And there's Bill Martz, with more money than God and the power to buy everyone I've just listed, and more, several times over. Martz is heavily leveraged with Good Pharma, and if the company is hurting, then Martz is really hurting. It turns out that Martz has a low pain threshold, and when he discovers what's going on, it's not pretty.

We begin meeting all of these folks, fine and otherwise, when Jin-Li goes out one night clubbing with a couple of her Hispanic workers. The night ends in a particularly horrific way with two women dead and Jin-Li on the run and in hiding. This incident brings her brother out of his mainland China hidey-hole and to New York City. His financial empire depends upon Jin-Li doing her job, something she can't do while she's in hiding. Chen knows about Ray Jr. and thinks that he is responsible for his sister's disappearance and possible death. Ray doesn't know a thing --- Jin-Li had broken up with him weeks before, and he still does not know why --- but he wants to find out where Jin-Li is and why someone wants to kill her. Ray Jr. turns to his father, one of the best people and detectives he knows. At first, Ray Sr. isn't a lot of help; he is heavily sedated and barely lucid, more often than not. Yet Ray Sr. holds a small but important key to what is occurring in THE FINDER, information upon which Jin-Li's life, and more, will ultimately depend.

Obviously, not everyone who appears here is going to make it to the end. Like most of Harrison's work, it did not conclude the way I thought. All I will say is that you should not expect a sequel. But don't let that keep you from eagerly anticipating his next book, especially if you read THE FINDER.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

I've read a couple other books by Harrison and this is the best yet. This novel is as much about New York and its denizens as it is about corporate espionage and shady stock dealings. What I like about Harrison is that he writes genre novels like nobody else. His unique voice really gives you the feel of the fast paced hustle and bustle of New York.

Jin-Li, a beautiful and secretive Chinese woman who becomes involved in a plot to steal valuable information from corporations in New York City, is forced to go on the run when her complicity is discovered by powerful New Yorkers who stand to lose a fortune, while her secretive former lover, Ray Grant, races against time to find her before her enemies do. BT.
I'd have to agree with some and say this was just an average thriller. It got wordy at times and everything wrapped up a little too quickly at the end. An overall readable thriller with just enough graphics and suspense to push it along.

In Bodies Electric, and to a slightly lesser degree Afterburn, Colin Harrison created two of the darkest, grimmest, most enthralling and original noir novels. His ability to evoke the dark side of humanity in the blood-spattered, exhaust fume filled NYC jungle in these two books is unequaled. His atmosphere, settings and dialogue ("You is trouble coming and trouble going") are hypnotizing, and his weaving of the history and society of the city and capitalism creates a nightmare, but extremely realistic, atmosphere.

His other books are frankly not as good. While each one has its moments, generally of a grim and apocalyptic variety, the stories are far less well conceived and delivered. Finder meanders off into a feel good happy ending, which wouldn't necessarily be bad did not the entire story deal in pain, sociopathy, corruption of every kind and the worst of human nature. It just seems like he whacked it out as "just another book", instead of the cris de coeur of his two masterpieces.