After months of it sitting in the CD player at home, I finally finished the audio version of Joseph Finder’s Paranoia. It’s a story about a guy who uses company funds for a lavish party, gets caught, and then is forced by his boss into industrial espionage to keep himself out of federal prison.
The story starts off pretty good. He is deep in the new company spying and stuff. Moving up the corporate ladder. The love interest. It all looks pretty good. The book even takes its tragic turn at the right time, when the main character decides that he can’t do it any more and gets the stuffing beat out of him. But then it loses focus.
There’s something about rappelling down a building, and it starts to get all Mission Imossible. His friend gets Rambo skills out of nowhere, and they start doing things that no sane person would consider, imminent jail term or no.
I really liked the character as it was developed, but as I said, at the end he started to act a little weird. It’s as if the author knew where he wanted it to go, but didn’t know how to reveal it so he went completely insane with the action.
So, yeah, the end was kind of a letdown, but I wouldn’t call it not worth the time. It was surely a good 3/4 of a read.
