Protege » (Unabridged, 8 cass, 10hrs. 56min.)

STEPHEN FREY is a principal at a nothern Virginia private equity firm. He previously worked in mergers and acquisitions at J.P. Morgan and as a vice president of corporate finance at an international bank in Midtown Manhattan. Frey is also the bestselling author of Shadow Account, Silent Partner, The Day Trader, Trust Fund, The Insider, The Legacy, The Inner Sanctum, The Vulture Fund, and The Takeover.

Having survived his rise to Chairman of Everest Capital, Christian Gillette is safely perched atop the financial industry. He's just accepted Everest's largest private investment, he's poised to take over his ex-rival's sinking firm, and he's buying the NFL's newest team. Plus, an ambitious deal-maker named David Wright has caught his eye. Wright reminds Gillette of his younger self. But everything comes to a screeching halt when a shadowy man calls Gillette to a meeting, offering new information about his father and his still mysterious death. As he becomes more entangled with the stranger, Gillette feels his grip on Everest weakening-and realizes his life is once more in danger. When all signs begin to point to Wright, what's a chairman to do?

Publishers Weekly

The mob and a disgruntled competitor are trying to kill Christian Gillette, the charismatic, good-looking and wildly successful chairman of Everest Capital, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. He's got government spooks trying to use one of his companies as a front for a top-secret nanotechnology program. And on top of all this, he still has to run his firm and figure out the truth about his father's death. Narrator Graham does the book justice, voicing the high-powered businessmen with all the right intonations, using slight alterations to distinguish between characters, including a spot-on British accent (although his mob hit man accent does seem a bit trite). His facility for dialogue makes Graham an ideal choice for this audiobook, as the novel's characters are its primary strength. Graham is also adept at reading the narrative sections, using deliberate pacing that makes the action compelling and easy to follow-and this is essential, as the novel features a complex web of plot threads that, at times, strains credibility. Fortunately Graham provides a stabilizing influence, keeping the story more firmly grounded in reality even as the author has it veer off into thriller fantasyland. Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 3). (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.