Paranoia provides an
excellent case to consider the Amazon.com reader comments system.  Readers are divided on the book: some
declare it to be an excellent suspense thriller about the world of high-tech
corporations.  They like the theme of
industrial spying and say that the surprise ending is astonishing.  They give high praise to the writing and the
twists and turns of the plot.  But other
readers say how disappointing they found the book.  They complain the writing is clichéd and the final twist of the
spy story is completely predictable. 

The book is narrated by Adam
Cassidy, a rather foolish man in his twenties with an ability to get himself
out of difficult situations by making up tall tales.  At the start of the story, he is working for Wyatt Telecom, but
he gets caught using company funds illegally, and the CEO Nick Wyatt coerces
Adam into working at their competitor Trion Systems in order to find out about
a secret project Trion is developing.  The thrill of the plot comes from Adams espionage and the danger
of his getting caught.

As with any spy novel, the central
question is who will turn out to be a double-agent, or even a
triple-agent.  I am generally very bad
at figuring out whodunit in murder mysteries and I rarely able to predict the
surprise endings in films like The Sting or The Sixth Sense, but
I found the denouement of Paranoia was hardly a bolt from the blue.  Furthermore, as soon as we are introduced to
the character of Adam’s angry bitter father, who has a serious disease, it is
obvious that the old man’s death will occur at some emotionally crucial moment
of the novel.  Nevertheless, Finder’s
writing is strong enough to keep the reader enjoying the scenes and wanting to
know how the story ends up. 

I wish the novel had more paranoia
in it: near the end there is a sequence where Adam is breaking into a building
and is in danger of getting caught, and he gets anxious then.  He is also anxious occasionally because he
fears getting found out by people at Trion Corporation.  But for the most part, he is amazingly
trusting of people when he should be far more suspicious and careful.  For real paranoia, readers will do better to
turn to Kafka. 

The unabridged audiobook is read by
Scott Brick, who works as well as he can with the narrator’s narrow emotional
range.  It’s a fine audiobook for a long
car journey where you can’t pay too much attention to the details. 

© 2004 Christian Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of
the Arts & Humanities Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at
Dowling College, Long Island. He is also editor of Metapsychology Online
Review.  His main research is on philosophical issues in medicine,
psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: Fiction, AudioBooks