The Finder: A Novel

Written by Colin Harrison

Narrated by Jason Culp

There's no doubt about it: Colin Harrison is a master storyteller. Critics and readers love his gripping, dark books. It's hard not to get sucked into his world. Entertainment Weekly calls him the "class act of the urban thriller," Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times lauds him as "a master of mood and atmosphere," and Publishers Weekly crows that Harrison "writes like an angel."

Now, the author of The Havana Room, Afterburn, and Manhattan Nocturne raises the stakes with an electrifying new thriller, The Finder. Harrison spins the story of a young, beautiful, secretive Chinese woman, Jin-Li, who gets involved in a brilliant scheme to steal valuable information from corporations in New York City. When the plan is discovered by powerful New Yorkers who stand to lose enormous sums of money, Jin-Li goes on the run. Meanwhile, her former lover, Ray Grant, a man who was out of the country for years but who has recently returned, is caught up in the search for her. Ray has not been forthcoming to Jin-Li about why he left New York or what he was doing overseas, but his training and strengths will be put to the ultimate test against those who are unmerciful in their desire to regain a fortune lost. Ray is going to have to find Jin-Li, and he is going to have to find her fast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Apr 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781427203045

Colin Harrison

Colin Harrison is the author of the novels You Belong to Me, Break and Enter, Bodies Electric, Manhattan Nocturne, Afterburn, The Havana Room, The Finder, and Risk. He serves as the editor in chief at Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. A graduate of Haverford College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is married to the writer Kathryn Harrison and lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Jamesport, Long Island.

Reviews for The Finder

[claudia.anderson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

somewhat gruesome but a well written mystery/thriller

[ectopicbrain · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quite a trip: All over the five boroughs multiple weird characters combined with an easy writing style. Some overly long technical paragraphs that were not all that meaningful to the story.Bottom line, a fun read.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

All you have to do to realize how differently each books affects each individual is to read reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Clearly some books resonate for a whole variety of different reasons. This book is a good example of that.

Ray's relationship to his dying father is done, I think, in a very sensitive and emotional manner that resonated more than a few of my chords as I had gone through similar experiences with my father last fall. I suspect for many people, it would have been just boring. For me it was the opposite, if almost unreadable because it struck so close to home. Ray's farther is an ex-cop who wants desperately to help his son in the quest to locate his girlfriend. In the end he locates some key information in his old files.

Ray is an ex-fireman who was almost crushed with his partner (who did not survive) when the WTC collapsed. I must say that the description of Ray trying to stay alive while his partner dies is horrifying in the extreme and very realistic. I got claustrophobic while listening. One unusual method for murder is how the two Mexican immigrants are killed: their car is pumped full of sewage and they suffocate.

This is the third Colin Harrison I have read. This one is a tad different in that the protagonist is perhaps less ordinary - or should I say more extraordinary - than in the other two. On the other hand, his abilities are well within the range of normal considering his métier. Not quite as well done as the others, I think. The Peter Blake character seems superfluous; some of the character's motivations seem bizarre. Still an above average mystery/thriller.

[herschelian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well written, cleverly plotted, fast paced crime thriller set in New York - keeps you turning the pages.

[stonelaura · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like well-crafted pieces of an intricate puzzle, Colin Harrison in The Finder first lays out a large cast of characters and then skillfully brings them all together for a tight fitting resolution. The story opens with a disturbing, but original, murder scene involving a large load of raw sewage and a small car. But it turns out the intended victim, Jin Li, who runs an office cleaning and document shredding business as a cover to send corporate secrets to her stock market finagling brother Chen in Shanghai, stepped away from the scene at the critical moment and is now running for her life. It turns out that some of this un-shredded information has negatively affected the stock of Good Pharma, causing venture capitalist Bill Martz to lose a large chunk of his billions, and he’s not too happy about it. Enter the mob in various unseemly underworld characters, an ex-cop on his deathbed, and his 9/11 firefighting son, Ray Grant and you’ve got the makings of a page-turning thriller. While Harrison occasionally gives us a bit more detail than seems necessary, his ability to describe the surroundings and create both heroic and nefarious characters propels the story to its satisfyingly brutal ending.

[amf0001 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Opens with the graphic scene of women being drowned in sewerage poured into their car. But its not the big notes that count here (though they are excellent) it's the small subtle descriptions. The amount of care and life given to the 2 Mexican girls in the beginning, and then they die, shows how beautifully Harrison writes. This book works on all levels and the characterizations are excellent. The mystery is sufficiently engrossing, everyone has shades of gray, there is venality and evil but also just stupidity and greed. It's a very satisfying read. I'm running off to buy all his novels, this is a keeper and probably a reread as well.

[blueslibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An edgy mix of corporate intrigue and urban gangster thriller is the crux of this novel. A Chinese immigrant running an illegal financial information business for shadowy figures in Shanghai has to go on the lam and her boyfriend, a ex New York City fireman must save her. Harrison occasionally mis-steps by laying on melodrama, with the main characters all dealing with personal issues, but his intricate descriptions of financial fraud schemes, and moments of action in the various boroughs of New York keep this story above water.