Extraordinary Powers - Hardcover

Finder, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345386213 ISBN 13: 9780345386212

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

Harrison Sinclair, director of the CIA, has been killed in a car accident. His son-in-law, Ben Ellison -- an attorney and ex-agent -- instantly hears rumors of sinister forces within the Agency. The hunt for the truth will rush Ben headlong into a web of conspiracy beyond his control, where he is compelled by an artful, inescapable maneuver back into the employ of the CIA, and lured into a top-secret espionage project in telepathy that will endow him with "extraordinary powers" . . . .
"Spectacular . . . The action is unrelenting . . . Electrifying." Boston Sunday Herald


From the Paperback edition.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

clair, director of the CIA, has been killed in a car accident. His son-in-law, Ben Ellison -- an attorney and ex-agent -- instantly hears rumors of sinister forces within the Agency. The hunt for the truth will rush Ben headlong into a web of conspiracy beyond his control, where he is compelled by an artful, inescapable maneuver back into the employ of the CIA, and lured into a top-secret espionage project in telepathy that will endow him with "extraordinary powers" . . . .
"Spectacular . . . The action is unrelenting . . . Electrifying." Boston Sunday Herald


From the Paperback edition.

Reviews

YA-A sci-fi espionage caper filled with explosive action. A former CIA agent, who became a patent attorney following his wife's brutal murder, is sucked into the spy business again after an especially powerful MRI turns him into a mind reader. After many fake deaths, double and triple agents, and lots of economic and political sabotage, the story ends with small news clips that hint at the well-being of all major characters (the ones who appeared to have been blown away earlier). In an intriguing end note, Finder relates an interesting historical tidbit about "a fortune in Soviet gold [that] remains missing to this day" that the story is based upon. He also mentions that psychic research has long fascinated the CIA, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Soviet intelligence, leaving readers with ponderable issues to muse over.
Bunni Union, Geauga West Library, Chesterland, OH
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although the plot creaks a bit, Finder's ( The Moscow Club ) pacing, wit and style make this thriller a standout. In a long manuscript delivered to a reporter, Boston patent lawyer and former CIA operative Ben Ellison tells of an adventure that started with the accidental death of his father-in-law, CIA director Harrison Sinclair. After his first wife was killed by the KGB, Ben had shunned his previous employer but when a retired CIA deputy chief approaches Ben with proof that Sinclair was murdered and circumstantial evidence that he had been involved in a huge gold scam with the KGB's last boss, Ben agrees to a plan to clear Sinclair's name. Ben, who already has an eidetic memory, discovers during a high-tech lie detector test that he can also read minds. He hides his new-found power but when his second wife Molly (nee Sinclair) is kidnapped and he himself is almost killed in a Back Bay shootout, Ben sets off lickety-split for Italy, Switzerland, France and Canada. The reunited Ben and Molly outfox unknown foes, uncover numerous secrets that lead to the Very Big secret and a satisfying twist of an ending. The phlegmatic (yet occasionally crazy) Ben is a fine narrative voice, a bit like a Louis Auchincloss character telling an Eric Ambler story. Perhaps because of the CIA's old-boy tradition, Molly doesn't quite ring true but few readers will mind in this whiz of a yarn. 100,000 first printing; 100,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Finder, a writer for the New Republic and Atlantic Monthly , published his first novel, The Moscow Club (Viking, 1991), to wide acclaim. In this follow-up, a post-Cold War thriller, a medical breakthrough allows a reluctant CIA operative to read people's minds.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The idea of a spy with mind-reading ability might seem somewhat hackneyed, but Finder makes it work in this dense, post-Soviet Union, secret-agent novel. Finder's characters, Ben Ellison and his physician wife, Molly, leapfrog the globe seeking the killer of Molly's CIA director-father after the CIA equips Ben with the ability to read people's thoughts. From the get-go, Ben becomes a target of unknown assassins, and two particularly thrilling episodes--one in a rat-infested bunker and another in the labyrinth of the Paris Metro transit system--lead him to believe that big money is at stake here . . . money that could fund a frightening New World Order. Ben and Molly are likable characters: Ben is the spy, but Molly's abilities as a doctor and a quick thinker are an enormous help throughout the caper. (It's good to see a female character become more than the usual hand-wringing window dressing in a thriller.) While the couple traverses the globe from Tuscany to Zurich to Canada to Washington, D.C., they become wary of trusting anyone. Any regular thriller reader will be able to predict the first big twist involving the leader of the operation to fund the New World Order, but the second major surprise is a beaut, and it sets up the slam-bang finish as Ben desperately tries to read every mind in a Washington courtroom in order to uncover an assassin. Finder does not overuse Ben's ESP, thereby preventing this top-notch thriller from being just another gimmicky novel. Joe Collins

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345386213
• ISBN 13: 9780345386212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 449