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Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder — book cover

Buried Secrets

by Joseph Finder
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Overview

When Alexa Marcus, the teenage daughter of a billionaire hedge fund titan, is kidnapped, it’s up to family friend and “private spy” Nick Heller—a former intelligence operative trained in the Special Forces—to find her…before time runs out.

Alexa has been buried alive, a videocam trained on her night and day, her terror streamed live over the Internet. Who are her cunning and ruthless captors—and what do they want? And why is there no ransom request? With the help of an ex-lover, FBI Special Agent Diana Madigan, Nick must penetrate layers of deceptions and manipulations to hunt down Alexa’s abductors. He will destroy anyone who gets in his way—even Alexa’s own father, who refuses to reveal the one secret that will save his daughter’s life. Meanwhile, powerful members of a conspiracy are on Nick’s trail…and determined to make sure that their secrets stay buried. But they don’t realize how far Nick Heller will go to uncover the truth—and save a life.

About the Author, Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers, including High Crimes, Paranoia and the first Nick Heller novel, Vanished. Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Thriller, and Company Man won the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller. High Crimes was the basis of the Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd movie, and both Paranoia and Killer Instinct are in development as major motion pictures.  Born in Chicago, Finder studied Russian at Yale and Harvard. He was recruited by the CIA, but decided he preferred writing fiction. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association for Former Intelligence Officers, he lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Reviews

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Editorials

Kathy Blumenstock

…with Heller, Finder paints an appealing hero, engaging, in part, because he's not a superhero. Comparisons with Lee Child's Jack Reacher are inevitable, but Heller's actions are never those of a lone cowboy…Racing alongside Nick Heller, you'll want one more chapter, then another, and then one more. You know he has to prevail; you just need to know how.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Finder's compulsively readable sequel to Vanished opens fast and never slows down. When 17-year-old Alexa Marcus, the spoiled daughter of Marshall Marcus, a wildly successful money manager, is kidnapped from a Boston club and buried alive in a coffin equipped with an air hose and a video camera (for Internet streaming, of course!), Marshall asks his old intelligence expert friend, Nick Heller, to find her. The search leads into an expanding world of "buried secrets," from Marshall's gold-digging trophy wife, Belinda, and his crumbling investment empire to allegations of government funding for covert operations and the Russian mafia. A number of characters from Vanished, like Dorothy Duval, Heller's "forensic data tech," and Diana Madigan, his FBI agent ex-girlfriend, lend support. Self-effacing, wry, and ridiculously competent, Heller makes a reasonably engaging protagonist, but this thriller's real star is the suspenseful, expertly paced plot. (June)

From the Publisher

“A total wow of a read…this is the kind of book you have to look up from, every once in a while, just to collect yourself….Great tension….About as perfectly plotted and suspenseful as possible, this is a tremendous high-wire act.” – Booklist (starred review) on Buried Secrets

“Crisp, clipped chapters and numerous cliff-hangers propel the action at a breakneck pace. Finder’s outstanding writing and engrossing plot twists embellish a captivating summer read.” – Library Journal (starred review) on Buried Secrets

“Compulsively readable…opens fast and never slows down….Self-effacing, wry, and ridiculously competent, Heller makes a reasonably engaging protagonist, but this thriller's real star is the suspenseful, expertly paced plot. – Publishers Weekly on Buried Secrets

Library Journal

Following the acclaimed Vanished, Nick Heller is back in Boston to help an old friend, hedge fund millionaire Marshall Marcus, rescue his rebellious teenage daughter, Alexa, who is being held captive in an underground crypt, linked via satellite to both her kidnapper and her father. But as Nick begins the search for Alexa, he discovers an array of lies involving Marshall, a former female escort posing as Marshall's adoring wife and Alexa's mother, a U.S. senator, a scheming lawyer, and various government agents and Russian spies. Nick's expertise in Russian studies and international espionage together with the digital forensics skills of his former lover Diana help to locate Alexa—the buried brat who's, like, totally cool. VERDICT Highly recommended not only for Finder fans but for mystery lovers fascinated with digital surveillance. Crisp, clipped chapters and numerous cliff-hangers propel the action at a breakneck pace. Finder's outstanding writing and engrossing plot twists embellish a captivating summer read. [Major marketing campaign; see Prepub Alert, 12/20/10.]—Jerry Miller, Cambridge, MA

Book Details

Published
January 3, 2012
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pages
483
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781250000361

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