I thoroughly enjoyed Joseph Finder’s 2014 thriller Suspicion.
The only other book of his I’ve
read -- likewise excellent -- is his industrial-espionage thriller Paranoia
(2004). Only after-the-fact did I realize that the books share
an identical premise to trigger the action.
In both cases, a likeable protagonist engages in a piece of
legally sketchy behavior, not for selfish reasons, but to aid another. And in both cases, another party, with
a sinister agenda of their own, discovering his role, use that leverage to grab
him by the short-hairs and force him into extremely delicate and dangerous
behavior as an undercover operative.
The fact that I didn’t realize until afterwards that, to
that extent, I was reading the same book over again, simply illustrates the
role of motifs in literature. It
is no crime to swipe them, to reuse them consciously or unconsciously. In the Middle Ages, that was taken for
granted. And even today, in
genre fiction, it is recognized to be no harm no foul if the book or movie
employs such tried-and-true vignettes as the Spy Called Out of Retirement (the Cincinnatus motif), or car chases, or femmes fatales.
[For the full essay, of which the above is an update, click here:]
[Update 19 July 2015]
By an accident of meteorology, I found myself in the atrium of the local
library, a lethal heat outside, and A/C like an ice-blanket within. Seeking an excuse to remain amid the
soothing cool, I browsed a bit, and stumbled upon another Joseph Finder -- Buried
Secrets (2011).
Today, sheltering indoors, I curled up with the book. This time, parallels to Suspicion leap to the eye immediately.
*
Both novels focus on a teen daughter, product of swank New England
boarding schools, abducted by a sinister crime organization (in one case
genuinely, in the other only initially-supposedly, a Latino drug cartel).
Now, I myself never had a daughter, and didn’t
attend prep school: but with the
slightest tip of the die, I might well have done so. Therefore these themes are of personal interest, as being
might-have-beens, real in a closely adjoining alternate universe.
So, I read and imagine. Along the way, I meet the slang that
has come into currency since the Beatles broke up.
*
The central target of elaborate blackmail is a very wealthy man who made
his pile in high-finance, hedge-fund type activity. In either case, he has an over-manicured tarty trophy bride,
whom we see in her “soapstone-topped” sparkly kitchen. In both cases, in addition to his
criminal pursuers, the magnate is being closely monitored by Federal law
enforcement (FBI bzw. DEA), who are wise to his game.
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