FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert Sarah Cahill doesn’t know the man she’s tracking. But the so-called “Prince of Darkness” knows her—intimately. So when Sarah is summoned to Wall Street to investigate, little does she know that she’s the one under surveillance… until the terrorist infiltrates himself into the deepest, most desperate corners of her life.
Soon Sarah is plunged into a deep labyrinth of intrigue and catastrophe as she races to uncover a diabolically clever conspiracy…before time runs out…and the clock strikes THE ZERO HOUR.
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A thriller of gigantic proportions, The Zero Hour focuses on villain Henrik Baumann, a suave, cold-blooded mastermind who seeks to demolish the Wall Street computer network system that is central to the world's financial markets. Not only is The Zero Hour a jolting story with plenty of memorable murders and lusty intrigue, its mix of finance, terrorism, and high technology are meticulously described and mostly accurate: such a computer network actually exists and its destruction could disable financial markets. Wow.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
At his best?as in this thriller about a terrorist plot to bring down Wall Street?Finder (Extraordinary Powers, 1994, etc.) rivals the early Frederick Forsyth in his riveting combination of cool prose and hot plot. Indeed, there's more of a hint of the Jackal in Baumann (aka Zero; aka the Prince of Darkness), a freelance terrorist/assassin who can slay and mutilate with "no visible change in [his] glacial demeanor." Baumann's new boss is billionaire Malcolm Dyson, an American fugitive in Switzerland who, motivated by greed and vengeance, breaks the terrorist out of a South African jail and agrees to pay him $10 million to trigger worldwide economic catastrophe by blowing up the computer network that's primarily responsible for trading on the Street. Arrayed against Baumann are, among other law-enforcement agencies, the FBI, personalized here through Agent Sarah Cahill, who uncovers links between Dyson's plot, a murdered call girl in Boston and a New York banker with a taste for masochistic sex. What ensues is a cerebral but violent chess game played by Baumann, Cahill and others, with Cahill's young son winding up as pawn. Again in the manner of Forsyth, Finder textures his story line with precise technical expositions; his details on bomb construction are particularly fine. Not impressively original, but controlled with a master hand, this is a thinking person's thriller with bite. 100,000 first printing; major ad/promo; film rights to 20th Century Fox; author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Joseph Finder's plan was to become a spy. Or maybe a professor of Russian history. Instead he became a bestselling thriller writer, and winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel for KILLER INSTINCT (2006) and winner of the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller for COMPANY MAN (2005).
Born in Chicago, Joe spent his early childhood living around the world, including Afghanistan and the Philippines. In fact, Joe's first language -- even before English -- was Farsi, which he spoke as a child in Kabul. After a stint in Bellingham, WA, his family finally settled outside of Albany, NY.
After taking a high school seminar on the literature and history of Russia, Joe was hooked. He went on to major in Russian studies at Yale, where he also sang with the school's legendary a cappella group, the Whiffenpoofs (and likes to boast that he sang next to Ella Fitzgerald, an honorary Whiffenpoof). Joe graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, then completed a master's degree at the Harvard Russian Research Center, and later taught on the Harvard faculty. He was recruited to the Central Intelligence Agency but eventually decided he preferred writing fiction.
His first book, published in 1983 when Joe was only 24, was RED CARPET: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE KREMLIN AND AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL BUSINESSMEN, the first book to reveal that the controversial multi-millionaire Dr. Armand Hammer, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, had worked for Soviet intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s. (This book is no longer in print.)
But RED CARPET was only part of the story that Joe wanted to tell. So he wrote his first novel - the only way he could legally tell the whole Armand Hammer saga. Published in 1991, THE MOSCOW CLUB described events whose factual truth would only be revealed many years later. THE MOSCOW CLUB was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best spy thrillers of all time and was published in thirty foreign countries.
What followed were three more critically-acclaimed thrillers - EXTRAORDINARY POWERS, THE ZERO HOUR (sold to Twentieth-Century Fox for a record sum) and HIGH CRIMES, which became a 2002 Fox film starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. Joe was invited on the movie set and even cast for a nonspeaking role as a JAG prosecutor.
Published in 2004, PARANOIA represented a major turning point in Joe's career, landing on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists, among others. It was his first book to use the ruthless drive, corruption and conspiracy of the corporate world as riveting plotline. Called "fun...movie-ready...[with] twists aplenty..." by Entertainment Weekly, PARANOIA has been acquired by Gaumont, one of the world's largest film production and distribution companies. The movie deal was announced in April 2009, with Barry Levy ("Vantage Point") set to script the adaptation.
Joe's next three novels - COMPANY MAN, KILLER INSTINCT and POWER PLAY - were all bestsellers in which things were decidedly not business as usual. He was quickly hailed as "the CEO of suspense."
In VANISHED, published August 2009 by St. Martin's Press and an immediate bestseller, Joe introduced his new continuing character, "private spy" Nick Heller. Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator - exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man you call when you need a problem fixed. The second novel in the series, BURIED SECRETS, was published June 2011.
In addition to his fiction, Joe does occasional work for Hollywood, is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and Council on Foreign Relations, and has written on espionage and international affairs for a number of publications, including TheDailyBeast.com, Forbes, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. He roots for the Boston Red Sox and lives in Boston with his wife, daughter, and a needy golden retriever, Mia, a dropout from seeing-eye-dog school.
Having read this novel sometime ago, I made myself go back and re-read it before attempting to critique it. Now, after going through it a second time my impressions of "The Zero Hour" have not changed. Joseph Finder captures the reader's attention with a daring jail brake from a South African Prison. If this novel was a chess game I would say this opening was to the point. I was hooked. Add a rather inventive plot concerning the revenge of an incredibly wealthy man by the destruction of a clandestine computer system which practically runs our planet, and this story picked up steam in a hurry. Where it did run into a snag was in the character of Sarah Cahill, the FBI agent that ultimately saves the day. Her character seems too weak and hardly at all a match for "The Prince of Darkness". It would be nice if a female characters in Sarah's position could be portrayed as strong and confident. The fact that she is able to foil, perhaps the greatest professional terrorist of all time is a fluke at best. The ending of this novel ruined all the good work that had gone before. This one looks like it was made for television. The truth of the matter is that professional operatives are rarely stopped, and when they are, it is by law enforcement individuals that are equally as brilliant. Two evenly matched oponents in a real life game of chess, that is what makes novels in this genre work
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It's unfortunate that this book is out of print-- I suppose that to some it might seem that the events of 9/11 have rendered this tale of a terrorist attack on NYC moot.
Not so. Finder's story, set after the first attack on the WTC, is a bit spooky in how it manages to anticipate some of what did occur years later. Details about the world of terrorism and counter-terrorism that may have seemed merely nice detail work originally now have a special kind of resonance. For that reason alone, this book would be worth a look.
But that's not all it has to offer. Finder combines the tech-savvy detail of Clancy with the personal drama and driving suspense of Ludlum. We get a whole cast of characters that are drawn well enough to engage us in the story without stopping the narrative push.
Action, surprises, twists and a grippingly real premise-- the book manages to entertain and give you something to think about when it's over. A great read. I can only hope that the release of Finder's new novel Paranoia will fuel interest in his earlier works so that this sees print again, because it deserves to be out there.
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This is the second book by this author I have read, and both have been very enjoyable. When an exiled US industralist decides he wants revenge on the people who ruined him there he hires the best terrorist he can find to do the work.
"the prince of darkness" as he is known in the trade (by the few who know him at all) is an intelligent and totaly amoral character. On the law enforcemnt side in the US we have Sarah Cahill a former expert in terrorist actions in the FBI.
This book it has to be said, is full of anagrams, but then I suspect that the world of law enforcemnt is full of them now - and being somewhat of a techno-thriller they go with the genre.
One of the things I liked about this novel was that none of the main characters are invulernable. They are people with lives of their own in an extraordinary situation. Sarah is not as 'strong' as her terroist opponent - but that only makes her more believable.
I'm looking forward to more books by this author, and if you like thrillers this book is worth picking up.
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