Final Target

by Steven Gore

Overview

“Final Target is an action packed debut thriller with a unique plot and vivid characters.”

—Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author of Fugitive

 

Author Steven Gore is the real deal—a private investigator with three decades of international experience—and he makes a serious splash with Final Target. An intelligent, gripping, unputdownable story of corporate and political corruption, conspiracy, and murder that careens around the globe at breakneck speed, Final Target recalls the best work of Richard North Patterson as it captivates with authentic detail. Cornelia Read, author of The Crazy School, describes Gore’s exceptional debut as, “James Bond for grownups,” while New York Times bestseller Sheldon Siegel (Judgment Day) calls it, “Lightning paced, deftly plotted, and compulsively readable.” Read it and see what the excitement is all about.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061782183
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/09/2010
Series:	A Graham Gage Thriller , #1
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	4.16(w) x 7.56(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Steven Gore is a former private investigator turned “masterful” writer (Publishers Weekly), who  combines “a command of storytelling” with “insider knowledge” (Library Journal). With a unique voice honed on the street and in the Harlan Donnally and Graham Gage novels, Gore’s stories are grounded in his decades spent investigating murder; fraud; organized crime; corruption; and drug, sex, and arms trafficking throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured on 60 Minutes and honored for investigative excellence. Gore lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

What People are Saying About This

Phillip Margolin

“Steven Gore’s ‘Final Target’ is an action packed debut thriller with a unique plot and vivid characters that gives readers a fascinating look into the world of international industrial espionage. I’m looking forward to the investigator Graham Gage’s next adventure.”

Cornelia Read

“FINAL TARGET is a smart, riveting, knock-your-socks-off debut thriller—James Bond for grownups.”

Editorial Reviews

Steven Gore bursts onto the international thriller scene with a captivating debut in FINAL TARGET. Lightning paced, deftly plotted, and compulsively readable, FINAL TARGET is a stellar debut. We will be hearing much more from Steven Gore. Find a comfortable chair and plan to stay up late.” — -Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best selling author of, JUDGEMENT DAY

“FINAL TARGET is a smart, riveting, knock-your-socks-off debut thriller—James Bond for grownups.” — -Cornelia Read, Author of THE CRAZY SCHOOL

“Steven Gore’s ‘Final Target’ is an action packed debut thriller with a unique plot and vivid characters that gives readers a fascinating look into the world of international industrial espionage. I’m looking forward to the investigator Graham Gage’s next adventure.” — -Phillip Margolin, author of FUGITIVE

From the Publisher

Steven Gore’s ‘Final Target’ is an action packed debut thriller with a unique plot and vivid characters that gives readers a fascinating look into the world of international industrial espionage. I’m looking forward to the investigator Graham Gage’s next adventure.

Phillip Margolin

FINAL TARGET is a smart, riveting, knock-your-socks-off debut thriller—James Bond for grownups.

Cornelia Read

Steven Gore bursts onto the international thriller scene with a captivating debut in FINAL TARGET. Lightning paced, deftly plotted, and compulsively readable, FINAL TARGET is a stellar debut. We will be hearing much more from Steven Gore. Find a comfortable chair and plan to stay up late.

Sheldon Siegel

PI Graham Gage must find the person responsible for shooting his best friend, attorney Jack Burch. While Burch lies unconscious in the ICU, federal agents are investigating him for conspiracy, fraud, and other crimes in connection with the collapse of a defense contractor. To find the truth, Gage puts together a team that crosses international boundaries and dips into the shadowy world of the Russian mafia. VERDICT Drawing on his expertise as a private investigator, Gore has written an exciting debut thriller that will both educate and entertain the reader. With his command of storytelling and insider's knowledge, Gore can go up against Nelson DeMille and Daniel Silva and come out a contender. [HarperCollins's Harper imprint just published a mass-market edition of this work (ISBN 978-0-06-178218-3. pap. $9.99).—Ed.]

Library Journal

To save a beset friend, a San Francisco p.i. takes on American law enforcement, international capitalism and thugs from just about anywhere in Gore's accomplished debut. Jack Burch, a white-shoe lawyer who operates at a level high enough for air-sickness and complex enough to confuse even him at times, takes a bullet in the chest that San Francisco cops attribute to road rage. Well, maybe. Burch goes jogging; witnesses describe an altercation; shots are fired; the shooter flees unidentified; and Burch lands in the hospital, comatose. Essentially, that's the story told to p.i. extraordinaire Graham Gage, Burch's best friend. Abruptly, however, the story takes a nasty turn when it becomes clear the Department of Justice is almost as eager as Gage for Burch to recover. That's because the Feds think Burch is guilty of certain high crimes and misdemeanors and anticipate gratifying headlines for putting him away. Helping to make the case is Stuart Matson, shifty president of SatTek Incorporated, a one-time defense contractor now coming apart at the seams. Some are convinced that Burch played a fraudulent part in the SatTek debacle. It doesn't take Gage long to understand that Matson is a congenital liar and that the Feds are credulous simply because they want to be: Careers can be made from a juicy conviction, especially when fresh corpses drive the headlines. A bit long, but Gore has a deft way with one-liners, and in Gage, who views the world through eyes as cool as Sam Spade's, he has a keeper.

Kirkus Reviews

Getting shot during his morning jog through San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights neighborhood may be one of attorney Jack Burch's lesser problems, as his best friend, cop-turned-PI Graham Gage, swiftly discovers in Gore's promising, Bourne-again debut. Among other problems Burch faces while he remains in intensive care are a violent robbery at his law office; pressure from Russian and Ukrainian gangsters steamed about a natural gas deal he just brokered; and rumors he might be the focus of a probe into fraud at a failed Silicon Valley defense contractor, SatTek. Within days, Gage and his gumshoes are chasing leads on three continents—and finding a toxic web of corruption, treachery, and dead ends. Gore, a former Bay Area private investigator, knows how to tell a compelling story, though the overly convoluted plot and uneven characterizations undercut the suspense toward the end. (May)

Publishers Weekly