The Zero Hour: A Novel - Hardcover

Finder, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688144500 ISBN 13: 9780688144500

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1996

Synopsis

When FBI Special Agent Sarah Cahill, a counterterrorism expert, begins pursuit of a South African terrorist-for-hire known as the Prince of Darkness, he turns the chase back on Sarah and her eight-year-old son. By the author of Extraordinary Powers. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph Finder writes for The New York Times and The Washington Post and he taught at Harvard.

Reviews

At his best?as in this thriller about a terrorist plot to bring down Wall Street?Finder (Extraordinary Powers, 1994, etc.) rivals the early Frederick Forsyth in his riveting combination of cool prose and hot plot. Indeed, there's more of a hint of the Jackal in Baumann (aka Zero; aka the Prince of Darkness), a freelance terrorist/assassin who can slay and mutilate with "no visible change in [his] glacial demeanor." Baumann's new boss is billionaire Malcolm Dyson, an American fugitive in Switzerland who, motivated by greed and vengeance, breaks the terrorist out of a South African jail and agrees to pay him $10 million to trigger worldwide economic catastrophe by blowing up the computer network that's primarily responsible for trading on the Street. Arrayed against Baumann are, among other law-enforcement agencies, the FBI, personalized here through Agent Sarah Cahill, who uncovers links between Dyson's plot, a murdered call girl in Boston and a New York banker with a taste for masochistic sex. What ensues is a cerebral but violent chess game played by Baumann, Cahill and others, with Cahill's young son winding up as pawn. Again in the manner of Forsyth, Finder textures his story line with precise technical expositions; his details on bomb construction are particularly fine. Not impressively original, but controlled with a master hand, this is a thinking person's thriller with bite. 100,000 first printing; major ad/promo; film rights to 20th Century Fox; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Breathlessly exciting... As fleet and entertaining as Black Sunday...

For this book, Finder, a Harvard-trained sociologist, did intense research on the means and ways of committing terrorism and battling it. Therefore, much in the way of fascinating information is to be gleaned from The Zero Hour, though none of it will help you sleep at night. Scary. The novel opens with the jail break of a South African operative reasonably believed to be the most lethal in the world known as the Prince of Darkness. His employer is a billionaire financier who wants to strike a death blow to the American economy. And there is a way. On Wall Street, in life and in this fiction, exists a mild-mannered banking operation that is central to all worldwide financial transactions. The P.O.D.'s mission is to bomb its computer. And F.B.I. agent Sarah Cahill's mission is to stop him, somehow, though she has next to nothing to go on. But he's close, close to her and to the kill.

A well-briefed, well-financed, well-armed international terrorist goes up against the computer at the nerve center of a Wall Street bank. Billionaire Malcolm Dyson, a fugitive from American justice ever since Manhattan Bank CEO Warren Elkind resisted his criminal blandishments and turned him in for insider trading, has been licking his wounds in his Swiss estate. And ever since a clandestine federal attempt to grab him for informal extradition without benefit of legal niceties left him crippled and his wife and daughter dead, Dyson's plans for revenge have broadened to include the US government. What can he do to send a mortal blow to both his enemies? Dyson breaks terrorist Henrik Baumann, the so-called Prince of Darkness, out of a South African prison so that Baumann can (1) tap into Manhattan's computer and siphon off billions in funds, and (2) plant a bomb that will bring the building crashing down and humble the CIA and FBI. But the murder of the prostitute who steals crucial computer codes from Elkind accidentally brings FBI agent Sarah Cahill into the case--her philandering NYPD ex-husband, who knows Sarah had been running the woman as an informant, calls her in to make the identification--and with a few additional lucky breaks (a secure phone line from Switzerland that's not so secure, an erased answering-machine tape Sarah succeeds in bringing back from the dead), we're off to the races, with the feds hot on the Prince's trail, and the Prince, who knows they're hunting him, icily determined, amid all the high-tech dirty talk, to kill anybody who gets too close. Despite frequent echoes of the World Trade Center bombing, Finder (Extraordinary Powers, 1994, etc.) keeps the menace breathlessly exciting rather than grimly scary. The result is as fleet and entertaining as Black Sunday, if you don't mind rooting for an international bank. (First printing of 100,000; film rights to 20th Century-Fox; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A wealthy and bitter man, seeking revenge for the killing of his wife and child, hires Baumann, a brilliant but completely amoral terrorist who is justifiably known as "The Prince of Darkness." As Baumann prepares his plan to destroy not only people but also the very foundation of Western finance, FBI Special Agent Sarah Cahill assembles and directs a team of equally talented law enforcement agents to hunt him down. Careful plans are set in motion by both sides, and readers learn about the newest tools and techniques of the trade, from information gathering to the creation and dismantling of explosives. Finder (Extraordinary Powers, Ballantine, 1994) skillfully increases the tension bit by bit, creating characters we care about and reminding us all too vividly of past terrorist attacks (Sarah built her counterterrorism career with her investigation of the World Trade Center bombing). An exceptionally well-plotted and carefully crafted novel, this is a major achievement for the genre.
--Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Info. Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Henrik Baumann, the so-called Prince of Darkness among world terrorists, has escaped from a high-security prison in South Africa with the help of fugitive financier Malcolm Dyson. Dyson, who was paralyzed and saw his wife and daughter killed in a botched kidnap attempt by bounty hunters working for the U.S. Marshal's Service, has scores to settle against New York banker Warren Elkind (who turned Dyson in to the SEC for insider trading) and the world economy in general. Dyson hires Baumann to wipe out the computerized records of Elkind's Manhattan Bank and then blow up the Network, the supersecret computer center that handles most of the world's monetary transactions. Pitted against Baumann is FBI terrorism expert Sarah Cahill, the special agent who identified the key clue to solve the mystery of the bombing of Pan Am flight 110 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The battle of wits between Baumann and Cahill forms the heart of this story. Finder lingers too long on the hardware used by good guys and bad guys alike, and the novel takes a while to gain momentum. Once it does, the tale provides lots of surprises, zooming along at breakneck speed to a thrilling climax. A 100,000 first printing and a seven-figure movie sale to Twentieth Century^-Fox should help stimulate interest. George Needham

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688144500
• ISBN 13: 9780688144500
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 422