The Fixer

April 27, 2015
Rick Hoffman, the hero of this so-so standalone from Thriller Award–winner Finder (Suspicion), has been fired from his high-flying job as a celebrity journalist, dumped by his fiancée, and reduced to camping out in his boyhood home in Cambridge, Mass., empty for years while his father has languished in a nursing home after a paralyzing stroke. When Rick finds more than $3.4 million in cash in the walls of his dad’s crumbling manse, it greatly improves his financial situation, but greatly diminishes the quality of his life as he searches for the source of the loot. Despite being attacked, then kidnapped and tortured, he doggedly continues to uncover his father’s sketchy past as “a bag man and a fixer.” Rick manages to touch a lot of nerves, most notably those of a high-profile PR man connected with Boston’s public works project known as the Big Dig. Rick’s look into his father’s past is touching and human, but readers should be prepared for an overblown plot and a predictable denouement. Agent: Daniel Conaway, Writers House.

April 1, 2015
A struggling writer finds $3.4 million in cash in a crawl space in his old house, leading him to discover the truth about his stroke-ridden father. Since Rick Hoffman lost his lucrative job with a slick city magazine, things have gotten so bad that he's camping out in his family's disheveled, heat-deprived home in Cambridge. His father, Leonard, a former lawyer, is in a nursing home, unable to speak or communicate. An ace investigative reporter for the Boston Globe before he was hired by the Back Bay to write about rich people, Rick begins nosing around to find out where the money came from. In no time at all, he suffers his first beating from bad guys who warn him to back off. Living large, he hides out in hotel rooms while investigating his father's past. Leonard, it turns out, is a man of many secrets. He was a bagman for strip clubs and porn clubs. He was also an activist pro bono lawyer for civil liberties causes. Digging through city records and interviewing former connections of his father's, Rick uncovers a coverup of major proportions-and more surprises. As in his previous novel, Suspicion (2014), Finder gives us a character who acts stupidly to pull himself out of bad circumstances. But neither the lack of credibility nor Rick's thinness as a character keeps the book from being a fun read. Finder returns with another thriller that will have you shaking your head over the protagonist's actions but still turning the pages to find out what happens next.

January 1, 2015

Having lost his job and apartment, Rick Hoffman moves into his abandoned childhood home, where renovation reveals something that puts his life in danger. After 2014's Suspicion.

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Starred review from May 1, 2015
Finder can make reading about someone walking across a room excruciatingly suspenseful. In this, the tenth of Finder's stand-alone thrillers, decay is the predominant theme. Rick Hoffman is haunted by the fact that his original values have been lost. He started out as an investigative journalist, and did well at it until he was seduced by money into working for Back Bay, a glitzy Boston monthly. Now he's out of work, his job eliminated; his girlfriend no longer interested; his apartment no longer affordable. He has no choice but to move back into his childhood home, which is falling apart and empty. In trying to find out what creatures are scrabbling around inside the walls, Rick discovers a stack of money running into millions. He races to get the money out of the house (a somewhat sketchy neighbor was with him when he made the discovery) and into a safe place. But other people are right behind him. Rick's challenge is to stay one step ahead of his pursuers while figuring out the backstory on the money. He uses his investigative-journalism background in intriguing and totally believable ways, but the bad guys seem to be just as intelligent. This is a thriller that is as much about redemption as it is about escape. A remarkable, exciting read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

July 27, 2015
Sins and fortunes of the father come into play when, in the blink of an eye, celebrity journalist Rick Hoffman loses his job, fiancée, and apartment, moves back into the long-vacant family home in Cambridge, Mass. and discovers millions of dollars hidden in the walls, apparently by his father. But the news of the hidden loot somehow surfaces and lures several very tough guys prepared to kidnap and torture Rick to get their hands on it. Finder uses breakneck pacing to keep his thriller on track, and reader Kearney, employing a crisp, no-nonsense delivery, keeps the story flowing fast and clear. For the exposition and for many of the characters—including women such as Rick’s faithless ex-fiancée and his just-reacquainted high school heartthrob—Kearney settles on a serviceable natural voice. But the hard-boiled types—the thugs, a half-friendly FBI agent, an extremely wealthy ex-cop, and the power broker pulling all the strings—are treated to the kind of gruff, very heated brogue one might hear unleashed in a Boston bar on the feast of St. Pat’s. A Dutton hardcover.

April 15, 2015

After losing his job and being kicked out by his ex-fiancee, Rick Hoffman is forced to sleep on the couch in his dilapidated childhood home. When he decides to fix up the house so it will finally sell, he discovers a giant stash of cash hidden in the walls. Unable to communicate after a devastating stroke, his father can't explain the funds, so Rick must channel the dogged journalist he once was and investigate. His probe turns dangerous as he uncovers a web of cash banks, payoffs, and enigmatic Boston bigwigs and their hired muscle. Rick is repeatedly threatened and beaten but remains determined to learn the truth about his father's past. In the end, it all comes down to a tragic accident, widespread corruption, and a man trying to do the right thing. VERDICT Rick's initial reckless spending and some questionable decision making don't make him especially likable, but his extreme persistence will win over readers as he wises up and acknowledges his shortcomings. Details about Boston and the Big Dig (a megahighway project) enhance the setting of Finder's latest nonstop page-turner that is sure to be popular with his fans and thriller aficionados. Try as a read-alike for Matthew Quirk. [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]--Emily Byers, Tillamook Cty. Lib., OR

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.