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    Vanished: A Nick Heller Novel
    Vanished: A Nick Heller Novel
    Vanished: A Nick Heller Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Vanished: A Nick Heller Novel

    Written by Joseph Finder

    Narrated by Holter Graham

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Nick Heller is tough, smart, and stubborn. And in his line of work, it's essential. Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator--exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man you call when you need a problem fixed.

    Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick's nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick's brother, has vanished without a trace.

    Nick and Roger have been on the outs since the arrest, trial, and conviction of their father, the notorious "fugitive financier," Victor Heller. Where Nick strayed from the path, Roger followed their father's footsteps into the corporate world. Now, as Nick searches for his brother, he's on a collision course with one of the most powerful corporations in the world--and they will stop at nothing to protect their secrets, in Joseph Finder's thrilling Vanished.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateAug 18, 2009
    ISBN9781427206732
    Author

    Joseph Finder

    Joseph Finder is the author of several New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Buried Secrets, High Crimes, Paranoia and the first Nick Heller novel, Vanished. Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Thriller, and Company Man won the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller. High Crimes was the basis of the Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd movie, and Paranoia was the basis for 2013 film with Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman. Born in Chicago, Finder studied Russian at Yale and Harvard. He was recruited by the CIA, but decided he preferred writing fiction. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Association for Former Intelligence Officers, he lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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    Reviews for Vanished

    4/5

    26 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      The book is great. The quality of this audio sucks. It dropped out multiple times, often is the best parts.
    • 4/5
      A great thriller. Recommend to all and looking forward to the next book by Finder.
    • 4/5
      Well this was a pretty good book. I've wanted to read this book since it came out and I finally got a copy. It's about a guy who's looking for his brother who apparently "vanished" after him and his wife were attacked in a parking lot after eating dinner out one night but things aren't always as they appear and Joseph Finder delivers all the twists you can imagine in one intense plot.Yes, I recommend!
    • 4/5
      This is the first of the Nick Heller series with the second to be on sale this month. I really like many of the characters in this book primarily Nick, Dorothy, Merlin,and Gabe. The plot is engaging and the action fairly fast paced (although it did drag at times). I definitely recommend reading this book and then picking up the second book which I have already had the opportunity to read through an Early Reviewers program - the second book is even better. It is my plan to now go back and read previous Joseph Finder books.
    • 5/5
      What the hell has Roger Heller gotten himself into? Vanished, the latest thriller from Joe Finder opens with an attack on Lauren and Roger Heller as they are leaving a Georgetown restaurant. Lauren wakes up more than 24 hours later, badly concussed. Of Roger, there is no sign. In the interim, their 14-year-old son, Gabe, has called in his uncle, Nick, for help. It is Nick Heller, brother of Roger, who Finder is setting up to be the hero of a new series of novels.He’s made a good choice. Born to a life of extreme wealth—all of which was lost in a scandal—Nick gave up the pursuit of cash and joined the armed forces. Now he works as a private investigator for a high-end DC firm. He’s tough, charismatic, and extremely competent. Nick Heller strikes me as a character that could go over equally well with both men and women. Nick and Roger haven’t been close in years, but Nick can’t leave his only brother’s disappearance entirely in the hands of the DC police. He begins his own investigation, while at the same time continuing to look into loose threads from his last work case. The deeper he digs into each, the more convoluted these two cases become. And the more enemies he seems to acquire.Occasionally I thought I knew where Finder was going with his story, and occasionally I was right. More often I was wrong. A couple times I was completely stunned by a plot development. Joe Finder is definitely more clever than I am. Nick Heller is also more clever than I am, and the man really knows how to throw a punch. Fight scenes in the book were unusually interesting and well-written. Additionally, take it from a native Washingtonian that the DC setting was used with specificity and authenticity. (And observations like, “Washington, D.C., is to lying what Hershey, Pennsylvania, is to chocolate” made me smile.) Plenty of details that ring true do a lot to sell the whole story.These days, I’ve got a litmus test for thrillers: Can I read it in a single day? Because it has relatively little to do with how many pages or how fast I read. It’s all about a novel holding my interest for hours on end. Vanished passed with flying colors. It’s not Finder’s strongest work, but it’s a good start to a new series.
    • 4/5
      A great crime mystery, a Nick Heller series, he's a high-powered international investigator for Stoddard Associates in which Traverse Development Group hires his company too investigate a stolen shipment from Argon Express Cargo aboard a jumbo airliner. Nick realizes quickly that the shipment isn't stolen, but magnetic decals were switched on planes that were alike making them appear different. On further investigation of the shipment, Nick reveals it's billions of one-hundred dollar bills and his brother Roger which has recently been kidnapped is somehow connected, the mystery continues.
    • 3/5
      This is typical Joseph Finder. The story is about Nick Heller, an investigator for a private security firm in DC. He is in the course of investigating the theft of a shipment of packages when his brother goes missing. Eventually the two threads weave together in a complex way that can be a little hard to follow.
    • 3/5
      Enjoyable yet forgettable, I recall being enthralled by the twists and turns of the plot but I can't recall much about them now (a couple of months later). Nick Heller, the heroic main character, is called in to help out his nephew and sister-in-law after his brother Roger vanishes. Nick, a former special forces operative and now working in the corporate world, soon uncovers some interesting facts about his brother's life--facts that take him back to their childhood and to their father--who is in prison. This was an average thriller, entertaining but not especially memorable. Anyone in the mood for a quick paced "beach read" that won't take much mental power would enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      With his novel Vanished, Joseph Finder introduces the character of Nick Heller a private spy who served with the U.S. Army Special Forces. In this first instalment Nick is dealing with the disappearance of his older brother Roger who vanishes after his wife is attacked. Nick faces the task of protecting his sister-in-law and nephew while uncovering the circumstances of his brother's disappearance. The more he uncovers the more he realizes that his brother is living a double-life. This fast-paced book leads readers into the grey area where governments and private contractors work in, in other words, the money-making side of war.Our hero is intelligent, tough, loyal and seems to follow his own code of honour. He can also be funny, charming and a smartass when the situation calls for it. Like any great character there's conflict in his background. His father is in jail for fraud and grand larceny after embezzling millions of dollars and his once close relationship with his brother is now rocky.Vanished is an enjoyable action-packed read filled with interesting characters. I'm glad I decided to read it before reading the ARC I got of Buried Secrets. the next book by Joseph Heller featuring Nick Heller private-spy extraordinaire.
    • 3/5
      Nick Heller is ex-special forces. He finds out that his brother is missing and he goes into action and tries to find him and those who took him, will pay. Heller will make sure of that. That's pretty much all I want to say about the plot, because I don't want to give to much away. As I said, overall, it was an okay read. Not great, not bad, just okay. I found a lot of the book predictable. I mean I saw things coming from a mile away. The characters were okay. Nick Heller is being compared to Jack Reacher. That's a high order. Reacher is my favorite fictional character, and Heller isn't even close. It may not be fair to compare Heller to Reacher, but that's what people are doing, even Finder and Lee Child, the author of the Reacher books are doing it. I'd like to have seen Heller kick more butt than he did. That being said, when he did kick butt, he was pretty good at it, but he was no Reacher. For me, Heller was to caught up in hi-tech spyware, and it lost me. I thought that Finder tried to hard. This isn't his best work, and I've read worse by other authors. If you're read all of the Jack Reacher books, and you're looking for something to read that sort of like Reacher, then give it a try. This is a good book if you're in between the Jack Reacher series. Reacher is still the man! Overall, if you want to read it, I suggest you get it from a library. The odds are that I'll read the next one in the series, because you can't just judge a character from one book. That being said, I'll be getting it from the library.
    • 4/5
      Someone attacks Lauren Heller while she is out to dinner with her husb and, Roger. When she wakes up in the hospital, Roger has vanished.Roger's brother, Nick is a former Special Forces member who is an investigator for Stoddard Services. He has just prented the theft of a cargo full of money from a plane in a regional airport outside of L.A.Even though Roger and Nick haven't spoken in years, Nick agrees to help find his brother.Roger's position is chief financial officer in a corporation and he has the burden of his father's crime. Nick and Roger's father in in jail for securities fraud and insider trading. This associated guilt makes Roger more diligent at this job. Lauren tells Nick that Roger said he found some corruption and she thinks he has been kidnapped.As Nick investigates, he runs into military looking men from a corporation similiar to Blackwater Corporation. They provide mercenaries and security in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. The also bribe officials and give the military in the U.S. a payoff for helping them.Nick continues to investigate and overcome these military people. There is some good action and Nick reminds me of Lee Child's character, Jack Reacher.I was entertained by the story and look forward to the next story with Nick Heller.
    • 2/5
      Interesting but contrived. I really liked his earlier books better.
    • 3/5
      Roger and Nick Heller are brothers and as different as night and day. Roger is a financial genius who learned at the knee of his father who is in jail for bilking people out of billions. Nick is former Special Forces who had never been swayed by his father’s lifestyle. When Roger’s wife is assaulted and Roger disappears, Lauren Heller asks for Nick’s help. Nick is already working a case of missing cargo from a plane but can’t turn down Lauren, especially if it means keeping his nephew, Gabe, safe. Nick soon realizes things aren’t what they seem to be and people he thought he trusted are up to their bank accounts in trouble. Roger has been in touch with their father in prison but for what purpose? Defense contractors are involved as well as Roger’s company, and Lauren appears to know more than she is admitting. Although Nick is a likeable guy, I didn’t find the rest of the characters that interesting, was frustrated with Lauren’s lies, and didn’t care if Roger ever surfaced. It doesn’t say much for a book pegged a “thriller” when the most colorful and memorable character is Victor Heller, the father, who is serving thirty years.
    • 5/5
      I dove into this book and read it in two days. Enjoyed every moment of the ride. If I had to give a critique, I would say the opening prologue dragged and the first chapter took until halfway through to get its footing. After that, it just flowed from start to finish and I could not put it down.
    • 5/5
      Vanished by Joseph Finder (won from The Book Trib) (Rating--5)Synopsis: Nick Heller, former Special Ops now working in PI Private Sector receives a call for help from Gabe, his nephew. Gabe's stepfather, Roger and Nick's estranged brother, has vanished and his mother has been attacked and is in the hospital. Nick not close to his brother or his father, who is in prison for securities fraud, takes a leave of absence to help investigate what has happened to his brother Roger. Even though their relationship has been strained for years, blood is thicker than water or is it?Thoughts: This was a heart pounding suspense from the a personal level to private sector and all the way up to the government level. Every turn was a surprise right down to the last page. This was the first book I read by Joseph Finder and it won't be my last. Thoroughly enjoyed.