Job [Paperback]

Douglas Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2005

Ned Allen is young, smart, and upwardly mobile. Several years into his career as an ad salesman for a successful computer magazine, Ned's finally left his small-town roots behind, and is certain that the sophisticated Manhattan world he covets is his forever. His wife Lizzie is also a rising star of a prestigious PR firm. It seems that Ned's made it. But then what appeared to be a career break shows its true colours. Ned's forced to make some tough calls, among them a question of ethics and the small matter of whether to lie to his wife - and when the tough calls just keep getting tougher he finds himself on the brink of losing everything ...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At first, it's hard to like Ned Allen, the ambitious, yuppie salesman who is the protagonist of Douglas Kennedy's new thriller. The moral dilemmas and frustrations that trouble Ned on his rise to the sophisticated heights of Manhattan seem an afterthought, perhaps tacked on in response to their total absence in his first, highly trumpeted but ultimately unsuccessful novel, The Big Picture. But Ned begins to grow on the reader. Brutally fired, then blacklisted in his own industry, he watches his Faustian bargain with a ruthless real estate tycoon unravel, and it gets easier to root for him.

This entry in the recent genre of thrillers set in the world of downsized corporate America isn't quite up to the high standards established by Donald Westlake in The Ax, but it'll make the time go by a little faster on the red-eye back to the home office. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Kennedy's first novel, The Big Picture (1997), was a riveting commercial thriller that was perhaps overhyped. His second, though it shares the first book's galloping pace and strong sense of close-of-century angst among the well-fixed, seems, two-thirds of the way through, to give up the ghost for what reads like an overplotted, underwritten homage to Grisham. Ned Allen is a brash young ad salesman for a striving computer magazine in Manhattan, and the perils and pleasures of such a life are brilliantly set out in the opening chapters. Then a German conglomerate (in what may be a particularly timely reference among book people) takes over, and disaster strikes. In no time, Ned is without a job and, because of a quarrel he got into with a powerful space buyer and an enraged swing at his creepy German boss, is perhaps unemployable. Meanwhile, wife Lizzie is tiring of his remoteness and tantrums. To the rescue comes an old school chum who works for a high-profile but shady real estate tycoon, and Ned finds himself enmeshed in money laundering and murder?with him as the suspect. The concluding chapters brim with Grishamesque ploys: offshore bank accounts are manipulated, traps are set, time is running out. The trouble is that Ned's world has been so accurately and meticulously set forth early in the book that all this breathless, barely credible skullduggery seems to belong to a different, and poorer, book entirely. Kennedy can certainly make the pages turn; he must learn to make them turn to more consistently rewarding effect. $500,000 joint marketing campaign with Big Picture paperback; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Abacus (February 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0349118914
• ISBN-13: 978-0349118918
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.4 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas Kennedy is the author of ten novels, including the international bestseller Leaving the World and The Moment. His work has been translated into 22 languages, and in 2007 he received the French decoration of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born in Manhattan, he now has homes in London, Paris, and Maine, and has two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Super Novel by Kennedy!, July 22, 2007

By 

Wanderer (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Job (Paperback)

Note: I made some Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews.

Your "helpful" vote is greatly appreciated. Thanks

A very short review is not necessarily a bad review. You don't want to re-tell the whole story. I try for the hook that will make a person want to read this book. In my opinion, you should read long reviews after you read the novel. Read a short review first.

I don't want to give too much away, but when things go down hill for an major sales executive at computer magazine, things really go down hill--like a roller-coaster ride.

Having read "The Big Picture," I'm beginning to wonder if Douglas Kennedy can write a bad novel. Both novels are up-in-the-night stories. I would start with "The Big Picture." Kennedy is a great discovery in the genera of crime fiction. Highly recommended.

The Big Picture

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tough to Like, But Resourceful Main Character/A Quick Read, March 23, 2001

By 

P. Connors "Colonialpara" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Job (Hardcover)

The main character in this book is from the get-go, tough to like. As the novel continues, he screws up by the numbers and gets himself into deeper trouble. He is one of those men who really doesn't stop to smell the flowers and in the process, misses all the details of life that are important to him.

As the book opens, Ned Allen is a Regional Sales Manager for a computer magazine. He is living the yuppie dream without the ability to pay the bill. He has a beautiful young wife who loves him, but who also accuses him of not communicating or sharing his fears, hopes and aspirations. As we get to know Ned, it seems that the only redeeming character trait that he has is his loyalty to the people who work for him.

As the book continues, Ned plans on becoming a bigwig at his magazine after a German conglomerate takes over. However, plans don't work out, the Germans flip the company quickly (to the competition, no less) and the new buyer decides to quickly close the magazine. Ned is out of work and almost as quickly, out of his home and marriage, when a night of drunken carelessness leaves him with the telltale marks of illicit sex. Within hours, it seems Ned is not only jobless and homeless, but penniless as well.

As he grows desperate, an old high school friend seems to step in to the rescue. But just remember, when things appear to be too good to be true, they generally are. Ned is hired to market a private equity fund. He quickly comes to realize that all is not as it appears to be. Just as quickly, he finds that his high school buddy is more sinister than altruistic and Ned realizes that his friend has him in a deadly and vice-like grip.

The author Douglas Kennedy, has done a very fine job of capturing all of the tension, fear and emotion that Ned feels as he realizes that his predicament may be inescapable. But as other readers of this finely plotted and paced thriller will tell you, Ned Allen, not always likeable as a person, is more resourceful than we would suspect.

Kennedy paces this story at just the right speed to move Ned along from one predicament to another. The reader finds himself beginning to sympathize with Ned and hope that he finds a way out. Because, despite his failings as an employee and a husband, Ned Allen has really done nothing to merit the problems that have been heaped on his plate.

I enjoyed this book. Mr. Kennedy does a very effective job of fleshing out his characters and although I did not like Ned too much at the beginning of the book, he reminded me of John Grisham's main character in THE FIRM by book's end. This is a fast read that gets faster as the story progresses. To be sure, it is not Tolstoy, but it is an entertaining look at the world of magazine publishing, sales, and some of the shadier and more sordid sides of investment banking and high finance. There is also a well wrought description of the money laundering process and how Ned is sucked into it as an unwitting dupe.

All in all, an entertaining, quick read. Give it a try.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First Novel, July 2, 2007

By 

C. Middleton (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Job (Paperback)

It is always a pleasure to read a novel that is crafted so well, where the author's skill at story telling is so blatantly evident, that it literally immerses the reader into its world and will not let go until the last page is turned.

The Job is an excellent tale about a Ned Allen, a magazine advertising salesman who loves the thrill of the deal, closing the sale is his ultimate adrenalin rush, and he's good at it. He's living the Manhattan dream: high fliers, exclusive restaurants, a downtown apartment and a beautiful wife. Ned is also a nice guy, generally an ethical man, which is a dangerous thing to be in a world of the "cut throat" deal. One could say that life is a series of choices, and the choice we make determine who we are in the end. Ned wants to do the right thing, he cares about his employees, but sometimes the pressures of the deal, and the stress of the moment can push one to make decisions that can turn one's life upside down. Ned is confronted with an ethical dilemma - he makes a decision, moving into that ethical `grey' area, that sets off a chain of circumstances which changes his ideal Manhattan life into a nightmare.

Kennedy ensures we have great sympathy for Ned Allen. The mistakes he makes, his dubious ethical choices, most would agree are minor compared to some of the stories we hear about in the world of big business and high finance. But for some people it doesn't take much to topple our house of cards on simply a whim or seemingly insignificant choice. While some get away with murder or move through life stepping on people on a daily basis without a second thought of consequences, some of us can make one little mistake, and the world changes forever. Ned is that type of person that must follow his own values or pay the price. And, unfortunately, he pays the price.

The job is a convincing piece of story telling, compelling in its content, a compulsive experience that wouldn't let go until it was finally finished in the dark early morning hours. A perfect weekend read that has prompted me to seek out further novels by Douglas Kennedy. A great performance.