The Protégé

October 31, 2005
The mob and a disgruntled competitor are trying to kill Christian Gillette, the charismatic, good-looking and wildly successful chairman of Everest Capital, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. He's got government spooks trying to use one of his companies as a front for a top-secret nanotechnology program. And on top of all this, he still has to run his firm and figure out the truth about his father's death. Narrator Graham does the book justice, voicing the high-powered businessmen with all the right intonations, using slight alterations to distinguish between characters, including a spot-on British accent (although his mob hit man accent does seem a bit trite). His facility for dialogue makes Graham an ideal choice for this audiobook, as the novel's characters are its primary strength. Graham is also adept at reading the narrative sections, using deliberate pacing that makes the action compelling and easy to follow\x97and this is essential, as the novel features a complex web of plot threads that, at times, strains credibility. Fortunately Graham provides a stabilizing influence, keeping the story more firmly grounded in reality even as the author has it veer off into thriller fantasyland.Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 3).

October 3, 2005
Christian Gillette's second outing in financial thrillerland finds Chris heading Manhattan-based investment firm Everest Capitol after his boss was murdered in the series debut, The Chairman
. Everest is a huge success, as is Chris, though disaster looms from early on as Chris's right-hand-man, David Wright (the title protégé), has accidentally killed a prostitute in the course of a heavy session: "He kept replaying that awful scene in the bondage chamber in his mind. His foot hitting the block of wood, the awful sound of her neck snapping like a brand new Ticonderoga pencil between two thumbs." As the chapters march by, readers will find themselves swamped with questions: Why do government spies want to involve Chris in a secret nanotechnology scheme? What really happened when his father died in a plane crash? Will the Mafia infiltrate Chris's new Las Vegas NFL franchise operation? Will his romance with superstar pop singer Faith Cassidy fail? And many, far too many, more, though it is to Frey's credit that he is able to hold all these plots together and knit the tangled threads into coherence by the action-packed end. Multibillion-dollar deals and snappy financial jargon help fill things out, but readers looking for more than a quick payoff will have to seek gratification elsewhere.

February 6, 2006
The mob and a disgruntled competitor are trying to kill Christian Gillette, the charismatic, good-looking and wildly successful chairman of Everest Capital, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. He's got government spooks trying to use one of his companies as a front for a top-secret nanotechnology program. And on top of all this, he still has to run his firm and figure out the truth about his father's death. Narrator Graham does the book justice, voicing the high-powered businessmen with all the right intonations, using slight alterations to distinguish between characters, including a spot-on British accent (although his mob hit man accent does seem a bit trite). His facility for dialogue makes Graham an ideal choice for this audiobook, as the novel's characters are its primary strength. Graham is also adept at reading the narrative sections, using deliberate pacing that makes the action compelling and easy to follow—and this is essential, as the novel features a complex web of plot threads that, at times, strains credibility. Fortunately Graham provides a stabilizing influence, keeping the story more firmly grounded in reality even as the author has it veer off into thriller fantasyland. Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 3).