Power Play

by: Joseph Finder

Published by: St. Martin's Press (August release)

Reviewed by Bob Pike CSP, CPAE-Speakers Hall of Fame

Jake Landry is a fish out of water. Adept at running interference for his boss, Executive VP Michel Zorn, with aerospace engineers, quality control, production, and almost everything else—he just doesn’t feel comfortable in the executive suite. But that’s where he’s headed.

It’s time for Hammond Aerospace’s annual senior executive retreat at King Chinook Lodge. A two-hour flight north by float plane from Vancouver on a remote Canadian lake, it’s the perfect place for team building—or at least it was.

Things go wrong long before the team arrives. Hammond’s long-time CEO, Peter Rawlings, dies of a heart attack while playing golf at Pebble Beach. Cheryl Tyson is brought in from the outside as CEO—a female in what the other senior executives firmly believe is a man’s world. Then a major competitor’s new plane goes down in flames at the Paris Air Show. Michael Zorn, Jake’s boss, is on a whirlwind tour of Asia to wrap up billion dollar contracts as people switch to Hammond for the latest jumbo jet.

But the retreat must go on. Jake Landry, Michael’s assistant, is tapped to take his place. He knows the most about the company’s new plane and latest multibillion dollar gamble. He also knows why the competitor’s plane crashed—and knows whether the same problem plagues the Hammond entry.

Landry is the anti-hero you want to root for, against all odds. The pain in his past has equipped him for the present. And his steel-trap mind, which never lets a problem loose, uncovers the real reason the entire executive team is taken hostage. Only Landry and his old girl friend, Ali, (now CEO Tyson’s executive assistant) have the courage to step up against the military trained thugs. Who knew that guns, knives, and barroom brawling should have been on Jake’s resume? Is it just a ransom scheme—or is something much more sinister.

Finder brilliantly paints a clear picture of corporate power plays, the flaws of technology, and bribery as a sales technique.

Armchair Interview says: This book captures what desperate measures desperate men will take.