Buried Secrets
Ratings3
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.5
Joseph Finder introduced Nick Heller, a “private spy” who finds out things powerful people want to keep hidden, to widespread acclaim from the critics and wild enthusiasm from the readers, in the New York Times best-selling novel Vanished. 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 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. He’s being investigated by the FBI, he has a lot of shady investors, his fund is in danger and now he has a lot of powerful enemies who may have the motivation to go after Marcus’s daughter. But to find out who’s holding Alexa Marcus hostage, Nick has to find out why. Once he does, he uncovers an astonishing conspiracy that reaches far beyond anything he could have imagined. And if he’s going to find Alexa in time, he will have to flush out and confront some of his deadliest opponents ever.
Featured Series
4 primary books6 released booksNick Heller is a 6-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2009 with contributions by Joseph Finder and Lee Child.
Reviews with the most likes.
Private Spy, Private Investigator, Private Vengeance-Taker, whatever you want to call him, Nick Heller one of the best – he's tough, he's resourceful, troubled kids like him and he quotes The Punisher. Who doesn't love that?
Heller's relocated himself, his computer wiz, and his nephew to Boston since we saw him last, setting up shop marketing his peculiar trade. True to form, he's pretty picky about who he accepts as a client, but there is one who he can't turn away. Marshall Marcus, the richest man in Boston, was a lifeline for Heller's mother after his father's prison sentence was handed down. Now he needs a lifeline – actually, his 17 year old daughter does. She's been kidnapped and will be executed if her father doesn't give the men responsible exactly what they want.
The kidnapping itself, and the way Alexa is being held captive aren't that novel – most readers who've watched a police procedural or two in the last few years will have seen one or two scenarios like it. But Finder does make it distinctive by making the man holding her into a particularly sick and evil man. Thankfully, we don't spend so much time with Dragomir that the reader sympathizes with him, or starts to like him (à la Dr. Lecter). What he's doing to Alexa is just wrong – as is pretty much everything that has led up to this point in his life.
Nick's not just up against this twisted man – and those behind him – he also has to contend with a client who continually lies to him, an FBI official that seems to be blocking his efforts, and more than one person who isn't who they say they are. Thankfully, he has Dorothy, his old military friends, international intelligence contacts, and a different FBI agent backing him.
There's less action (as defined by explosions, gunplay, fights, etc.) than in Vanished, but it's more suspenseful. In Vanished, it wasn't until the closing pages that you had any idea what was happening with the victim – but here, there's never any doubt about what's going on with her, and what's going to happen to her if Nick doesn't put the pieces together. Soon. Which isn't to say it's all-thriller-all-the-time, there's moments where Nick and the reader catch their breath. Even a couple moments of levity (Nick's narrative voice helps a lot on that front) – his observation, “Veganism is apparently the paramilitary wing of vegetarianism” helped set the tone. Dorothy's eventual use of the word “Pepsi” to close a chapter made me chuckle audibly (you'll get it when you read this).
I should probably add that this book includes one of the grosser character deaths I've read in the last couple of years. Didn't bother me much, he had it coming.
We get to see a bit more of Nick's life and backstory this time. He's a better-rounded character now. It'd have been easy to see him as a workaholic who had no contact with anyone outside of work and his nephew before. But that's clearly not the case now. There's not much more to him – but there used to be, and getting that glimpse helps you care a bit.
It's taught, it's a page turner, it's a “I can always sleep later” kind of read. Man, oh man, I hope Finder has at least one other Heller adventure up his sleeve.
