Friday, July 10, 2015

When You Least Expect It…

The Fixer – Joseph Finder – (Dutton)

It is a classic writing jump starter; you find something in an unexpected place, use it to drive your story. For an added twist let’s throw into the mix the question that numerous children have raised during their lifetimes; how well do you really know your parents?

Those are the building blocks, the foundation of Joseph Finder’s latest thriller, The Fixer. At frayed ends having recently lost a high paying, high profile job as a writer at a Boston glossy, Rick Hoffman finds himself living in his childhood home, a dilapidated, moldering stack of bricks in need of a facelift. With his Dad wasting away in a nursing home, silenced by a stroke nearly two decades past, Hoffman is struggling to get by when a childhood neighbor finds him living in his Dad’s digs.
 

The neighbor helps him to determine the source of a foul order and after breaking through some ragged plaster, Hoffman finds some neatly packed stacks of hundreds and fifties. A quick count has the mystery find totaling out at $3.4 million and sets Hoffman on a path to discover the source of the largess.

It turns out the Hoffman never really did know his Dad; in fact he is surprised to learn the Leonard Hoffman built his legal career working as a fixer, the go to guy when it came to a mysterious “cash bank” and a guy who could get things taken care of.

As Hoffman peels back the layers in attempt to determine the not only the source of the money, but the story behind it, he encounters a steady stream of shady and dangerous characters. This is Classic Joseph Finder, just when you think you’ve a got a handle on things hold on tight for a high speed shift of gears and a new twist in the road. Finder is the master of dropping his lead characters into one precarious situation after another.

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