Is it a coincidence that I have read two books over the last two weeks that have competing story-lines vying for prime time? Is this a trend?A close relative stuck this book in my hand and said, “You’ve dabbled in the corporate game, read this book.” So I did. And I enjoyed the boardroom intrigue of Nick Conover, CEO of a major office furniture manufacturer in the Midwest, facing the hollowing out of manufacturing in North America replete with outsourcing, layoffs at home, take-overs, sell-offs and executive suite allegiance-shifting that can raise even a reader’s blood pressure. Then another story began to hover for prominence, a crime and its cover-up involving Nick. It reminded me of the TV series Columbo, when we know whodunnit at the outset and the tension hovers around let-see how-the-cops-figure-out-how-he-dunnit. And then to compound the situation, in keeping with the stock advice to thriller writers of “place your protagonist in a sticky situation, then make it worse, then make it even worse, and more...until the reader is screaming for reality to return”, the crime story veers off into a Fatal Attraction type scenario with a final Hollywood-style conflagration where everyone is at risk until the neglected and suppressed cop, Audrey, pulls off a winner.I wished the second strand had not been included, although I understand why: this is a thriller, and certain rules of the game have to be followed, even though they can be melodramatic and distort what was otherwise a well-grounded and realistic human drama.I found Nick and Audrey and their respective family scenarios well developed although some other aspects were shallow. For instance, I couldn’t understand how a drunk former accountant could immediately spot a flaw in a corporate sale contract that none of the other sober ones could, and how an unemployed manager would be having dinner in the town’s fanciest restaurant; recurring melodramatic statements like “the hand that held her was also the hand that held the gun,” were a bit of a turn off too. And yet, some truisms about corporate life were nicely slid in: “Corporations are about continuity, capital markets are about creative destruction,” and “Bosses have bosses. There was always somebody whose ass you had to kiss.”Although I read this page-turner very quickly and was engaged throughout, I had to ask myself why I was left feeling ambivalent in the end. Is it because corporate worlds, police-procedurals and psychopathic thrillers don’t mix very well? Or is it because, in combining all three, we sub-optimize the individual components?
4 ½ stars. Well done mystery-suspense in the corporate world. Business intrigue and back stabbing.I read this right after reading Paranoia. These are stand alone books and not related. They are different. Paranoia was edge-of-your-seat-suspense and scary. It’s characters were more toward the extremes: abusive angry father, slacker protagonist, and unethical corporate leaders. Company Man was harder to write because most of the characters were like ordinary everyday people. But the author did it well. He made them interesting. I liked the relationships, the plots, how things happened, and the in-depth character development. It is hard to make corporate things interesting, but he did. It wasn’t a “wow” kind of book. But it’s a good book and worth rounding up to 5 stars.I don’t like cliffhanger endings at the end of chapters. It’s manipulative. The author did this a few times which annoyed me. I prefer scenes finish to their conclusion before going elsewhere. One example was in chapter 104. The board is meeting, a person enters the meeting to do something critical. The chapter ends at that moment and goes to something else with other characters.STORY BRIEF:There are two main plots. 1. Nick is CEO of a furniture manufacturer. The board of directors forces Nick to lay off half the workforce. Therefore Nick is the most hated man in town. Nick shoots someone in self defense and hides it from the cops. Audrey is the homicide detective investigating the shooting. She uncovers clues throughout the book. Nick is worried. 2. Some corporate officers have been doing things in the company without telling Nick and against Nick’s wishes. Nick slowly discovers what’s going on, and has to figure out what to do about it. 3. A third element is the importance of family - a smaller part but good.Things I would have wanted to know before I read the book: (view spoiler)[When Nick hid the shooting from the cops, my first thought was I don’t want to read a story where someone knows about it and blackmails Nick. Too many authors do that. I’m tired of it. I’m happy to say that is NOT what this is about.I “require” happy endings. I don’t want the guys I root for to go to jail or get killed. And this ending was good for me. (hide spoiler)]
Do You like book Company Man (2006)?
This book was mentioned in Donald Maass' "The Fire in Fiction", a book on writing fiction, and it was used to illustrate techniques in creating the "every-man" protagonist. I picked up this novel as part of a project I have started, using the examples in Donald Maass' book as a reading list.Having never read a corporate thriller before, and having no experience in the corporate world, I dove into the story expecting to be challenged with keeping all the facts and characters clear in my mind. I was relieved to find that the technicalities were not that difficult to follow, and Joseph Finder does a good job of putting circumstances into laymen's terms. Also, the story itself was a good plot that kept moving well enough that I wasn't bored. A couple of elements that kept this review out of the five-star category were some fairly major issues with me. The romance is simply not believable under the circumstances. It happened too quickly, and there wasn't enough character development of the two involved for me to accept that a relationship could start between them. And because I wasn't buying that connection, everything after that was tainted.The second catch was that explosive ending. I felt like it was way over-played, making it a disappointing conclusion for the involved characters. In fact, I thought it was a little too convenient for the situation to eliminate only the "bad" characters while the "good" ones were virtually untouched.
—Richard Good
Nick Conover is the CEO of a powerful company who had to layoff thousands of workers. He is not a popular man in this small Michigan town. Add to that the sudden death of his wife in a car accident, and two adolescent children that are distant to say the least. As Conover tries to right the company, he is a big target of trouble, and he gets it by killing an intruder who invaded his home. He attempts to cover it up, as some of his colleagues are trying to maniuplate running the company from Conover. It is really a very good thriller, and Finder succeeds. However, one development that seemed strange and unrealistic was the romantic relationship he forms with the intruder's daughter, and unstable lady who suffers from depression. She is psychotic, and Conover is essentially a puppy dog around her. Although Finder made it interesting with this, it did not fit with the expanded aspect of Conover's life. Nevertheless, I enjoyed "Power Play" more, but "Company Man" is still alright.
—Kevin Bresnahan
CEO Nick Conover of Stratton Corporation goes from beloved town hero to scapegoat and villain when Fairfield Equity takes over and orders him to layoff 5,000 employees in a small town in Michigan. Conover is also struggling with the recent death of his wife and raising, the oldest who are rebelling. To compound matters, Conover is being stalked and his dog is brutally killed. He then kills an innocent man who happens onto his property. He allows his good friend and company security officer to talk him into hiding the corpse as he is convinced he will be viewed as a killer. Enter an aggressive detective who is making connections. Meanwhile, Conover is still being stalked, but by now he just doesn’t realize it. Company Man is a roller coaster ride that kept me turning the pages. Although the book could shave off about 50 of the 500 pages, the actions keeps the story moving at a fast pace and the characters are well developed. I give Company Man four stars and highly recommend it.
—Stephen Tremp
