Customer Reviews

Job

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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.

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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

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.

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.

You will like the protagonist of this novel, Ned Allen. He is a believable character. Ned starts off as a salesman that can close deals. but then he has trouble with job and family because he has ethics and sticks to them. Which makes him ready to accept a "Too good to be true" job from an old buddy. Our hero forgets that if it is too good to be true.... Ned gets trapped in the dealings of his buddy in real estate and there seems to be no way out. We watch Ned extricate himself from one impossible situation after another.

The author has done his homework. For he is very accurate on his details on even flight schedules and gates. (It is as if American Airlines hired him to advertise). You will not want to put the book down. Should take you two days or less. The ending should have been written better...but still an enjoyable read.

Douglas Kennedy is great a taking an arrogant yuppie, and bringing him down a few pegs, and does a great job here. For some reason, it's fun to see Ned Allen's high-style life fall apart, and then watch him try to hold it together. One big quibble: Any time the protagonist or anyone else flew somewhere (South or East or out of the Country) Kennedy would always mention in the book that it was an American Airlines flight. Even a flight to Cayman is on American Eagle. It was so distracting, at one point, for no reason, Ned is asked, "Are you flying Delta" and he says, "no, American." I thought maybe the airline figured into the plot later, but now, having finished the book, I'm wondering if Kennedy received a stipend from the airline!

Otherwise, it was a quick, fun, page-turning read, and ironically, I finished the book while flying an American flight from Boston to LA, so maybe the subliminal messages worked!

The Job had me hooked throughout most of the story. During the course of about 80%-90% of the book I found the story to be very interesting and believable (although somewhat predictable), the characters to be credible and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. However, while Kennedy managed to maintain the fast pace to the very end, during the last 10%-20% of The Job the plot and the behavior of the key characters lost much of its credibility--thus reducing my overall evaluation from an excellent book to just a good book.

I bought Douglas kennedys book in Galway, on my Yuletide holiday there. I like the storyline, because I used to deal with the Advertising and journalisic departments of UK computer magazines, so I had some empathy for the hero, Ned Allen. Kennedy writes with a very well-structured Hollywood-friendy style which is reminiscent of Grisham. There were aspects of the story-line that were just a little too fortuitous for our hero - Phil Sirios unquestioning cooperation, and that of D Suarez's - so that you just knew that everything was going to work out well for Ned. Alot of the characters were very sketchily drawn, and the only concession to contemplation and introspection is afforded to Ned, in the form of reference to his relationship with his father. Lizzie, his wife, has no such psychology bestowed upon her. However, Kennedy knows the kind of novel he wishes to write, and while it's not totally monomaniacally male, there is vastly more machismo suffused throughout the book, than any real thought for female characters: the Police officer at Dolinsky's funeral and the employment counsellor could have been endowed with more helpfulness and insight, in their comments, to help Ned, but Kennedy passed on the opportunity. I think it would have been better if Schubert and Lizzie had been allowed more space to reveal their life motivations, because this would have added greater credibility to their dynamic with Ned and Ballantine. Having said all that, it is a good page turner. I narrated a middle quarter of it for my brother, in the car, as we drove from Holyhead in Wales to London. He really loved it, so much so that he wants to know what the ending is now! Kennedy is obviously being positioned as a block-buster thriller writer by his publishers, and I think he'll make it. I picked up on him because I used to enjoy his pieces for the Irish Times. But if he can add a bit more of Hiaasen-esque humour, and can draw more fully-rounded characters a la Richard Price/Stephen King, then he has the ability to be a genuinely great novelist. Oh, and look to Julie Parsons ('Mary, Mary') for a bit more insight into the feminine mind.

"The Job" of course echoes John Grisham's "The Firm", as earlier reviewers have correctly pointed out, but I found Mr. Kennedy's book to be a shade darker and more sinister than the Grisham novel, and it is also a notch above Grisham's prose quality-wise.

The main character, Ned Allen, comes across as very human and believable, even though the over-the-top ending spoiled a lot of that credibility for me. Ned stumbles through the twists and turns of the book, barely reacting to all the massive blows aimed at him (which does make the character so sympathetic), and suddenly, in the bleakest of moments, he comes up with the grand scheme and brings down a whole network of big-money thugs? Hmmm...

Otherwise, "The Job" is a very exciting read, a novel that for once really deserves the phrase "hard to put down".

Ned Allen is a salesman barely living within his means in New York City. From a small town in Maine, he strives to shed his background and be a big player in the big city. He is the northeast sales manager for a computer magazine. His wife Lizzie is in public relations, and the two of them are busy living a life of crushing work schedules and dinner and drinks in all the right places. Always on the edge, Ned's life takes a precarious turn when the magazine he works for is sold to a German company. Almost simultaneously, Ned's job is on the line when Ivan, one of the salesmen working under him, loses a 6-page spread only a couple of days before the print deadline. The only way Ned can save the day is by making a veiled threat to Ted Peterson, the client who tried to pull his ad. Immediately following this success, Ned meets with his new German boss, who tells him that he wants to fire Ned's boss and put Ned in his place. Ned is sworn to secrecy, and though he feels bad for the fate of his boss, he is looking forward to his new salary and position. With all of this in place, Ned takes off for a week's vacation in the Bahamas with Lizzie, and starts spending more than ever.

When Ned returns to work on January 2, the office is full of security guards who are ushering out all the magazine's employees. Unbeknownst to Ned, while he was on vacation, the Germans sold the magazine to its fiercest competitor, which in turn decided to close the magazine down and fire everyone. Ned's boss, Chuck Zanussi, whose place he was slated to take, heard about the deal Ned had struck with the Germans, and takes a confrontational stance. Chuck is placed in charge of the new magazine, and tells Ned he will never have a job again if there's anything he can do about it.

Ned goes on a downward spiral. In addition to his troubles with Chuck Zanussi, Ted Peterson is also out to destroy his career, and every time it seems as if he may have a job possibility, one of his enemies puts a stop to it. Ned becomes depressed about being supported by his wife and drives a wedge between the two of them. She accepts a temporary job on the west coast in order to get some space from Ned. Then, when Ivan commits suicide over losing his new job (compliments of Ted Peterson), Ned really screws up and Lizzie throws him out of their apartment. Left with no money and nowhere to go, Ned calls Jerry, an old school friend he bumped into who now works for a major bigshot. Jerry gladly takes Ned in, setting him up in the spare room of his loft.

Jerry is the right-hand man of Mr. Ballantine, an ex-football player turned real estate mogul turned self-help author. One of Ballantine's new ventures is private equity funds, and he hires Ned to use his connections to line up potential new companies for investment. Ned has suspicions about the authenticity of his new job, but since it's the only thing he's got going, he keeps quiet. Things get suddenly sticky for Ned when he finds out that Jerry and Ted Peterson have apparently been doing business together, and the fund he is working for is definitely not what it's supposed to be. Ned is in way over his head, and suddenly looking at prison time or death.

Desperate, he finally levels with Lizzie and tells her everything that has happened, and she helps him find a way out. At the conclusion, Ned manages to disentangle himself from the mess he got into, but several other matters are unresolved, like his relationship with Lizzie and his career potential.

Douglas Kennedy has a definite talent for taking everyday lives and giving them an ominous spin. From the very first page, we are drawn into the drama of Ned Allen's life, and feel the foreboding hanging over him when it starts to unwind. It makes for a compelling, page-turning read. The villains in this book may be business moguls versus terrorists or island-dwelling megalomaniacs, but perhaps because of their ordinariness, they're even scarier. We see people like them every day at the office.

This was my second foray into the world of Douglas Kennedy, and though this book was very different from his first (The Big Picture), they were equally good, and I'll be searching for more.

Fans of Steven Frey (The Takeover) will love this book! It starts out centering on the daily highly pressured business of selling advertising in the computer magazine business. It then progresses to corporate takeovers, off-shore investment funds, and money laundering.

The main character, Ned Allen, is one of the best salesmen there is because of his "closing" ability. His decision to follow ethical rules leads him to lose his job, his wife, and be literally thrown out to the street with no future prospects.

Desperate for anything to keep him going he meets up with Jerry Schubert, a friend from his old hometown. Jerry seems to be a godsend, taking Ned in and helping with many of his prior problems (credit card debts, etc.) with ready cash and a fairly well-paying job. As usual, what seems too good to be true, is in fact that. As Ned finds out he is sucked into being a "slave" for Jerry and his shady dealings. A situation, which seems there is no way out of.

I read this book in half the time it normally takes me to read a book. It is one of those difficult to put down books. I found myself stopping at the end of a chapter but being so intrigued that I needed to look ahead to the next chapter.

The only distraction is that the book is written in first person. When dealing with thriller type fiction I usually don't like this technique because you know right up front that the storyteller is not going to die so some of the suspense is lost.

I recently read another Kennedy book called "The Big Picture." As much as I liked that one, I think this book is superior overall.