St. Martin’s © 2007, 384 pages [amazon]

Jake Leary is a junior executive with Hammond Aerospace, a company riven more than generally by corporate infighting since the recent selection of a new CEO intent on cleaning house. Jake is exceedingly competent, and in fact knows more than anyone else at Hammond about the new wide-bodied jet the company is rolling out. His expertise lands him a last-minute summons to the company’s annual leadership retreat — three days off the grid at a remote fishing lodge in British Columbia, team-building with a bunch of alpha male execs. But once they’re arrived at the lodge, professional backstabbing takes a back seat to more immediate dangers: a gang of dead-eyed hunters take the group hostage and demand an enormous ransom for their release.

[INSET TEXT: His expertise lands him a last-minute summons to the company’s annual leadership retreat — three days off the grid at a remote fishing lodge in British Columbia, team-building with a bunch of alpha male execs.] Like Joseph Finder’s previous corporate thrillers, Power Play is laced with technical

jargon, which lends the story credibility yet somehow doesn’t weigh down the pages. The story is narrated in the first person by Jake, who turns out to have a complicated past that makes him particularly well suited to dealing with a bunch of heavily-armed baddies. Jake is arguably a bit cartoonish, a hero who stands up for the underdog and doesn’t kowtow to power, who gets himself in hot water for his troubles. But he’s sufficiently fleshed-out to carry this adrenaline-rush of a read. Finder is adept at dripping Jake’s back story into the text. Come to that, he’s expert at writing smart, edge-of-your-seat fiction that you’ll want to read in one sitting: feed the kids before you start on this one.

(See also my reviews of Company Man, Killer Instinct, and Paranoia.)

Tags: book reviews, books, Joseph Finder, Power Play