Joseph Finder is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers.
School period
College/University
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Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Finder majored in Russian studies at Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
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Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, CGIS South Building 1730 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Finder received a Master of Arts degree from Harvard Russian Research Center in 1984.
Career
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1991
Joseph posing proudly with his first novel, The Moscow Club.
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2009
Joseph Finder
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2013
Joseph Finder is signing bookplates.
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2013
Joseph Finder with Richard Dreyfuss.
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2014
Joseph Finder with his new novel.
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2014
Joseph Finder, an American bestselling author.
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2014
Joseph Finder, an American bestselling author.
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2015
Joseph Finder with his publishing team: agent Dan Conaway and editor Ben Sevier.
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2016
South End library, 1991 Regent St, Sudbury, ON P3E 5V3, Canada
Thriller writer Joseph Finder talking about his work at the South End library.
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2016
Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St, Boston, MA 02108, United States
Joseph Finder at the Boston Athenaeum, a membership library. The private investigator hero of his Nick Heller series is also based in the city, where Finder lives with his family.
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2018
Tucson, Arizona, United States
Joseph Finder with William Kent Krueger at the Tucson Festival of Books.
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2018
Joseph Finder presenting his new novel.
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2018
Joseph Finder is at the signing event presenting his new novel.
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2018
Joseph Finder with Mark Greaney and James Rollins.
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2019
Trident Bookstore, 338 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, United States
Joseph Finder at an event at Trident Bookstore in Boston with Mark Ellis, author of the excellent Frank Merlin series of mystery novels set during World War II London.
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Joseph Finder
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Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren St, New York, NY 10007, United States
Joseph Finder signed copies of The Switch at Mysterious Bookshop.
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Joseph Finder whose novels have won numerous awards, including the Strand Critics Award, the Barry Award, and the International Thriller Writers’ Thriller Award for best novel. His first novel, The Moscow Club, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the 10 best spy novels of all time.
Gallery of Joseph Finder
Joseph Finder, an American bestselling author.
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Edgar Award
Finder received the Edgar Allan Poe Award, which is presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City.
Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St, Boston, MA 02108, United States
Joseph Finder at the Boston Athenaeum, a membership library. The private investigator hero of his Nick Heller series is also based in the city, where Finder lives with his family.
Trident Bookstore, 338 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, United States
Joseph Finder at an event at Trident Bookstore in Boston with Mark Ellis, author of the excellent Frank Merlin series of mystery novels set during World War II London.
Joseph Finder whose novels have won numerous awards, including the Strand Critics Award, the Barry Award, and the International Thriller Writers’ Thriller Award for best novel. His first novel, The Moscow Club, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the 10 best spy novels of all time.
(Now Finder returns with Company Man - a heart-stopping th...)
Now Finder returns with Company Man - a heart-stopping thriller about ambition, betrayal, and the price of secrets. Nick Conover is the CEO of a major corporation, a local boy made good, and once the most admired man in a company town. But that was before the layoffs. When a faceless stalker menaces his family, Nick, a single father of two since the recent death of his wife, finds that the gated community they live in is no protection at all. He decides to take action, a tragedy ensues - and immediately his life spirals out of control. At work, Nick begins to uncover a conspiracy against him, involving some of his closest colleagues. He doesn't know who he can trust - including the brilliant, troubled new woman in his life.
(Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive livin...)
Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive living in Boston and working for an electronics giant, a competitor to Sony and Panasonic. He's a witty, charismatic guy who's well-liked at the office, but he lacks the "killer instinct" necessary to move up the corporate ladder. To the chagrin of his ambitious wife, it looks as if his career has hit a ceiling. Jason's been sidelined. But all that will change one evening when Jason meets Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces officer just back from Iraq. Looking for a decent pitcher for the company softball team, Jason gets Kurt, who was once drafted by the majors, a job in Corporate Security. Soon, good things start to happen for Jason - and bad things start to happen to Jason's rivals. His career suddenly takes off. He's an overnight success. Only too late does Jason discover that his friend Kurt has been secretly paving his path to the top by the most "efficient" - and ruthless - means available.
(Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a ...)
Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice for a friend, he finds himself charged with a crime. Corporate Security gives him a choice: prison - or become a spy in the headquarters of their chief competitor, Trion Systems. They train him. They feed him inside information. Now, at Trion, he's a star, skyrocketing to the top. He finds he has talents he never knew he possessed. He's rich, drives a Porsche, lives in a fabulous apartment, and works directly for the CEO. He's dating the girl of his dreams. His life is perfect. And all he has to do to keep it that way is to betray everyone he cares about and everything he believes in. But when he tries to break off from his controllers, he finds he's in way over his head, trapped in a world in which nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted. And then the real nightmare begins...
(An off-site corporate event gone disastrously wrong. The ...)
An off-site corporate event gone disastrously wrong. The largest ransom in history. The price-tag: dead or alive. Now, in Joseph Finder's explosive thriller Power Play, it's up to Jake Landry-a modest, steady guy with a dark, hidden past-to save them all... It was the perfect retreat for a troubled company. No cell phones. No BlackBerrys. No cars. Just a deluxe lodge surrounded by thousands of miles of wilderness and a desolate seacoast. Jake Landry is a junior executive at the Hammond Aerospace Corporation, a steady, modest, and taciturn guy with a gift for keeping his head down and a turbulent past he prays he's put behind him. Ordered to fill in for his boss at the annual offsite, he's out of his element. He's uncomfortable with the lavish accommodations and especially with the arrogant, swaggering men who run the company and the only person he knows there is the new special assistant to the CEO-who happens to be Jake's ex.
(Nick Heller is tough, smart, and stubborn. And in his lin...)
Nick Heller is tough, smart, and stubborn. And in his line of work, it's essential. Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator - exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man you call when you need a problem fixed. Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick's nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick's brother, has vanished without a trace. Nick and Roger have been on the outs since the arrest, trial, and conviction of their father, the notorious "fugitive financier," Victor Heller.
(A criminal defense attorney who's made a name for herself...)
A criminal defense attorney who's made a name for herself by taking on - and winning - the toughest cases, Claire still manages to have a relatively calm life as a Harvard Law School professor, devoted wife, and proud mother to six-year-old Annie. Until one night, when the family is out having dinner, a team of government agents bursts onto the scene… heading straight for Claire's husband. Tom Chapman has been arrested for an atrocious crime he swears he did not commit. Claire is desperate to believe him - and prove his innocence - even when she learns that Tom once had a different name. And a different face. Now, in a top-secret court-martial conducted by the Pentagon, Claire will put everything on the line to defend the man she loves. But as the evidence keeps piling up, the less she knows who her husband really is… and the more he appears to be a cold-blooded murderer...
(Now, in Buried Secrets, Nick Heller returns, finding hims...)
Now, in Buried Secrets, Nick Heller returns, finding himself in the middle of a life-or-death situation that's both high-profile and intensely personal. Nick has returned to his old home town of Boston to set up his own shop. There he's urgently summoned by an old family friend. Hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus desperately needs Nick's help. His teenaged daughter, Alexa, has just been kidnapped. Her abduction was clearly a sophisticated professional job, done with extraordinary precision. Alexa, whom Nick has known since she was young, is now buried alive, held a prisoner in an underground crypt, a camera trained on her, her suffering streaming live over the internet. She's been left with a limited supply of food and water and, if her father doesn't meet the demands of her shadowy kidnappers, she'll die. And as Nick begins to probe, he discovers that all is not quite right with Marshall Marcus's business.
(FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert Sarah Cahil...)
FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert Sarah Cahill doesn't know the man she's tracking. But the so-called "Prince of Darkness" knows her - intimately. So when Sarah is summoned to Wall Street to investigate, little does she know that she's the one under surveillance… until the terrorist infiltrates himself into the deepest, most desperate corners of her life. Soon Sarah is plunged into a deep labyrinth of intrigue and catastrophe as she races to uncover a diabolically clever conspiracy… before time runs out and the clock strikes.
("Plan B" finds private spy Nick Heller in Barcelona, Spai...)
"Plan B" finds private spy Nick Heller in Barcelona, Spain on a rescue mission. The target: a walled compound with state-of-the-art security. The object: a teenage girl, held against her will. The plan: get in and rescue the girl and then get out - without tripping an alarm or alerting the army of guards. But even the best-designed plans can go wrong. Which is why Nick Heller always has a Plan B.
(It's 1991. The Cold War is over. Charlie Stone is a brill...)
It's 1991. The Cold War is over. Charlie Stone is a brilliant analyst for the CIA who made a name for himself during the height of the Cold War. But today his expertise is needed yet again: A top-secret tape - one that foretells a coup d'état in the Kremlin - has been smuggled out of the Soviet Union by one of a few remaining moles. Stone's assessment of the transcript is two-fold: Not only is a very real, very violent power struggle underway but the plot may be linked to an old mystery involving the imprisonment of Stone's own father. Could a McCarthy-era enemy be trying to send Stone a deadly modern message? Soon Stone finds himself at the center of another conspiracy - framed for a grisly murder.
(The news is shattering: The director of the CIA, Harrison...)
The news is shattering: The director of the CIA, Harrison Sinclair, has been killed in a car accident. Sinclair may have been a traitor - or the Agency's last honest man. Even his son-in-law, Ben Ellison, an attorney, and ex-agent, has heard rumors of sinister forces within the Agency that could have ordered Sinclair's assassination. Soon he is thrust into a web of intrigue and violence beyond his control back into the CIA and lured into a top-secret espionage project in telepathic ability funded by American intelligence.
(One bad choice gets a father caught up in a deadly situat...)
One bad choice gets a father caught up in a deadly situation in this electrifying thriller from New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder. Single father Danny Goodman suddenly finds himself unable to afford the private school his daughter adores. Then Danny meets Thomas Galvin, the father of his daughter's new best friend and one of the wealthiest men in Boston. Out of the blue Galvin offers a loan to help Danny out. Desperate, he takes the money, promising to pay it back. But the moment the money is wired into his account, the DEA comes knocking. Danny’s impossible choice: an indictment for accepting drug money, or a treacherous assignment to help the government get close to his new best friend.
(New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder's breakne...)
New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder's breakneck stand-alone thriller about the secrets families can keep - and the danger of their discovery. When former investigative reporter Rick Hoffman loses his job, fiancée, and apartment, his only option is to move back into - and renovate - the home of his miserable youth, now empty and in decay since the stroke that put his father in a nursing home. As Rick starts to pull apart the old house, he makes an electrifying discovery - millions of dollars hidden in the walls. It’s enough money to completely transform Rick’s life - and everything he thought he knew about his father.
(The chief justice of the Supreme Court is about to be def...)
The chief justice of the Supreme Court is about to be defamed, his career destroyed, by a powerful gossip website that specializes in dirt on celebs and politicians. Their top reporter has written an exposé claiming that he had liaisons with an escort, a young woman prepared to tell the world her salacious tale. But the chief justice is not without allies and his greatest supporter is determined to stop the story in its tracks. Nick Heller is a private spy - an intelligence operative based in Boston, hired by lawyers, politicians, and even foreign governments. A high-powered investigator with a penchant for doing things his own way, he’s called to Washington, DC, to help out in this delicate, potentially explosive situation.
(Michael Tanner is on his way home from a business trip wh...)
Michael Tanner is on his way home from a business trip when he accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in an airport security line. He doesn’t notice the mix-up until he arrives home in Boston, but by then it’s too late. Tanner’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files. When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. Both know that the senator broke the law by uploading classified documents onto her personal computer. If those documents wind up in the wrong hands, it could be Snowden 2.0 - and her career in politics will be over. She needs to recover the MacBook before it’s too late.
(At a conference in a Chicago hotel, she meets a gentle, v...)
At a conference in a Chicago hotel, she meets a gentle, vulnerable man and has an unforgettable night with him - something she’d never done before. They part with an explicit understanding that this must never happen again. But back home in Boston, Juliana realizes that this was no random encounter. The man from Chicago proves to have an integral role in a case she's presiding over - a sex-discrimination case that's received national attention. Juliana discovers that she's been entrapped, her night of infidelity captured on video. Strings are being pulled in high places, a terrifying unfolding conspiracy that will turn her life upside down.
(Nick Heller is at the top of his game when he receives so...)
Nick Heller is at the top of his game when he receives some devastating news: his old army buddy Sean has died of an overdose. Sean, who once saved Nick’s life, got addicted to opioids after returning home wounded from war. Then at Sean’s funeral, a stranger approaches Nick with a job, and maybe also a way for Nick to hold someone accountable. The woman is the daughter of a pharmaceutical kingpin worth billions. Now she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing her father and his company for burying evidence that its biggest money-maker was dangerously addictive. It was a lie that killed hundreds of thousands of people, including Sean.
Joseph Alan Finder is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Buried Secrets, High Crimes, Paranoia, and the first Nick Heller novel, Vanished.
Background
Joseph Finder was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1958, and spent much of his early childhood in Afghanistan and the Philippines before his family returned to the United States and lived in Bellingham, Washington and outside Albany, New New York.
Education
Bachelor in Russian Studies, summa cum laude, Yale University, New Haven, 1980. He received a Master of Arts degree from Harvard Russian Research Center in 1984.
After graduating from Yale summa cum laude, Joseph Finder continued his soviet studies at Harvard University where he completed a master's degree. After a stint as a Harvard professor, Finder’s ultimate goal was realized when he was recruited to join the Central Intelligence Agency.
It was at this point, that Finder decided to forgo his spy career and focus his efforts on becoming a fiction writer. While this may seem like a bizarre move for someone who had dreamed of being in the CIA for Finder it was a logical move. As a writer, Finder would be able to live out his life as a spy with the literary freedom to do whatever he wanted. In 1991, at the young age of thirty-three, Finder published his first novel The Moscow Club about a fictional KGB against the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. With the publication of his first book, Finder immediately received international acclaim and became an instant bestseller in Europe. With his knowledge of foreign affairs and desire to be a member of the intelligence community, Finder is the ultimate thriller writer as he brings expertise, knowledge, and creativity to his novels.
When not writing novels, Finder lives with his wife and daughter in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a founding member of the International Thriller Writers Association and serves on a variety of intelligence boards. His non-fiction writing on current events, particularly espionage and terrorism, can be found in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Thus far in his writing career, Joseph Finder has written a total of eleven novels. Two, Vanished and Buried Secrets, are a series about Nick Heller, while the remaining books are stand-alone stories. A movie, starring Harrison Ford and based on Finder’s 2004 novel Paranoia is due to be released in August of this year. Like the book, the movie will tell the story of corporate espionage that is full of suspense, romance, and drama. In this novel and movie, narrator Adam Cassidy is a low-level employee at a telecom company who breaks company rules by charging a lavish retirement party for a coworker to the company credit card. Once caught, CEO Nick Wyatt offers Adam a take it or leave it offer: go to jail or go to work for a rival company and pass along information on their new product to Wyatt. This new product is the latest in telecom innovation and poses a threat to the survivability of Wyatt’s company. At the rival company, Trion Systems, Adam is in close contact with the company’s CEO on a daily basis. As he becomes closer to his new boss and gets accustomed to the high salary and perks, Adam begins to question whether or not he should feed Wyatt confidential information. With drama and suspense on every corner, the movie is sure to follow in the footsteps of the novel and become a Hollywood hit.
In Finder’s first novel entitled The Moscow Club, the protagonist Charlie Stone is a CIA analyst on Russian affairs. Set after the Cold War has ended, the CIA learns of an imminent coup within the KGB against the Russian President. The only evidence of the threat is a top secret audio tape. Soon, Stone is framed for a horrible murder and finds himself on the run from his country. With nowhere to run, Stone finds himself in the Soviet Union where he meets the leaders behind the coup. The novel tells the story of Stone’s efforts to thwart the coup and stop a major restructuring of good to evil from occurring. Readers will be on their toes throughout the novel.
While many of Finder’s novels are stand-alone books that can be read in any order, he has written two books that follow the character of Nick Heller. The novels, Buried Secrets and Vanished, introduce us to Heller a former Special Forces soldier who specializes in digging up dirty secrets. In the first book Vanished, Nick learns that his estranged brother has been brutally beaten and kidnapped from the hospital. While searching for his brother, Nick is thrown into a secret world of lies and deceit when he learns his brother works for a defense contractor. Soon, Nick realizes that his search for his brother will be a violent struggle that pits him against individuals from his own country. In Buried Secrets, Heller has opened his own private security firm in Boston and is forced to defend his friends as enemies far and wide attempt to penetrate his inner-circle.
With twists, suspense, and drama on every page it is impossible to put down a Joseph Finder thriller. His unique prose and ability to draw the reader in instantly is what makes Finder among the best fictional espionage writers today. Finder’s books have received international acclaim and have made frequent appearances on various bestseller lists. With Finder’s preexisting expertise and knowledge in espionage, his novels bring an aura of believability that is not found in many of today’s thriller novels. As Joseph Finder begins his foray into Hollywood if his movies are anywhere close to as riveting and exciting as his books than he will be the next big star.
(It's 1991. The Cold War is over. Charlie Stone is a brill...)
2012
Views
Joseph Finder is an American author who writes various thriller novels. His books cover a variety of topics but are generally based on mystery and suspense, with some espionage stories thrown in. To write his thrillers, he usually does a lot of research: "I have writer friends who do no research at all, and some who do their research only at the end, to fill in details and correct points here and there. But I’m in love with the research. I love finding out things no one else knows. I love hearing the expressions people use, hearing anecdotes, observing details - all these things make the stories feel real. And part of it is that I need to become just expert enough in the area I’m writing about that I can tell a story in such a world plausibly and with realistic offhandedness. But more and more I simply have to tell myself: OK, if you don’t stop researching now, you’ll never meet your deadline. You know enough. Just stop. So I guess the short answer is: it’s the yearly deadline that tells me when I’ve done enough research."
Finder was born into the Cold War era of detente and mutually assured destruction with Russia. Consequently, it is no surprise that someone as cultured and well-traveled as Finder became interested in the Soviet Union, the KGB, and Russian history. From high school to college at Yale, Finder devoted his studies to anything and everything Russian From history to politics to the government, Finder became an expert on Russian affairs.
Quotations:
"Most of my time I spend writing the books. That’s the best marketing tool you can come up with: a good book."
Membership
Finder is a founding member of the International Thriller Writers Association, and served as Financial Advisor to International Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association-New England. He is also a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Boston Athenaeum, Harvard Club Boston, Yale Club Boston, and Phi Beta Kappa.
Personality
Much of his childhood was spent living around the world, including time in Afghanistan and the Philippines. Capable of speaking multiple languages, Finder began learning Farsi as a child navigating the streets of Kabul. From an early age, Finder was placed in extremely stressful environments with many unfamiliar faces surrounding him. Eventually, Finder’s family settled permanently just outside of New York.
Interestingly, Finder could have pursued a musical career as he was a member of the famed Yale a cappella group, the Whiffenpoofs.
Interests
traveling, foreign languages, music
Connections
Joseph lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife Michelle, whom he married on August 27, 1989, and their daughter Emma.