The Job - Softcover

Kennedy, Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316647152 ISBN 13: 9780316647151

Publisher: Little, Brown, 1998

Synopsis

Ned Allen is a brilliant salesman. He knows it's true because everyone says it is. But working as an ad-salesman for a computer magazine - albeit a rising one - isn't exactly glamorous and it's also incredibly high-pressured. So when - in the nineties parlance of management bullshit - Ned is 'downsized', he has to turn to new, rather more morally dubious practices in order to maintain his lifestyle.

Douglas Kennedy's new novel will send a shiver down the spine of anyone who has ever thought they enjoyed the comforts of so-called 'job-security' and it's as thought provoking and thrilling as THE BIG PICTURE.

About this title

Review:

At first, it's hard to like Ned Allen, the ambitious, yuppie salesman who is the protagonist of Douglas Kennedy's new thriller. The moral dilemmas and frustrations that trouble Ned on his rise to the sophisticated heights of Manhattan seem an afterthought, perhaps tacked on in response to their total absence in his first, highly trumpeted but ultimately unsuccessful novel, The Big Picture. But Ned begins to grow on the reader. Brutally fired, then blacklisted in his own industry, he watches his Faustian bargain with a ruthless real estate tycoon unravel, and it gets easier to root for him.

This entry in the recent genre of thrillers set in the world of downsized corporate America isn't quite up to the high standards established by Donald Westlake in The Ax, but it'll make the time go by a little faster on the red-eye back to the home office. --Jane Adams

Review:

What begins as an everyday tale of takeover, downsizing and outplacement in the ruthless Manhattan business world rapidly mutates for our ad sales hero Ned Allen into something altogether sinister and cut-throat. Slickly plotted, with dialogue crisper than a fresh pretzel, and cynically observant of modern mores. THE JOB rattles towards its concluison like a runaway train. Like a good salesman, Kennedy really knows how to close. (ESQUIRE)

A furiously paced, compulsive thrille... there are affinities with John Grisham's THE FIRM, but a greater compliment is that THE JOB also reminds me of GLNGARRY GLEN ROSS, David Mamet's hymn to the salesman. (THE TIMES)

Kennedy has again employed his Big Apple chutzpah, a lot of careful reseach and above all, his ability to tell a story that hardly ever slots down from express train speed to construct another highly entertaining page turner. (IRISH TIMES)

Excellent... one of the best reads of the year. (Frances Fyfield)

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0316647152
• ISBN 13: 9780316647151
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400