THE SWITCH
Buy the Book:Amazon
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Bookshop
Hudson Booksellers
Kobo
Powell's
Amazon Audio
Published by: Dutton
Release Date: June 13, 2017
Pages: 384
ISBN13: 978-1101985786
Series: Standalone Novels
About
Named by Booklist as one of the top ten crime novels of 2018 and by The Guardian as one of the best crime books and thrillers of the year
A simple mix up throws one innocent man into the crosshairs of sinister government secrets and ruthless political ambitions in New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder’s timely, electrifying new thriller.
Michael Tanner is on his way home from a business trip when he accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in the TSA security line at LAX. He doesn’t notice the mix-up until he arrives home in Boston, but by then it’s too late. Tanner’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files.
When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. Both know that the senator broke the law by uploading classified documents onto her personal computer. If those documents wind up in the wrong hands, it could be Snowden 2.0—and her career in politics will be over. She needs to recover the MacBook before it’s too late.
When Will fails to gain Tanner’s cooperation, he is forced to take measures to retrieve the laptop before a bigger security breach is revealed. He turns to an unscrupulous “fixer” for help. In the meantime, the security agency whose files the senator has appropriated has its own plan, darker still—and suddenly Tanner finds himself a hunted man, on the run, terrified for the safety of his family, in desperate need of a plan, and able to trust no one.
Praise
"Great characterization, heart-stopping chase scenes, a plot that never flags—and even a few fascinating facts about coffee sourcing. Finder may well be the best contemporary thriller writer going."
—Booklist, starred review
"The book whizzes by so quickly and suspensefully... A master of what might be called the 'man in over his head' thriller, Finder delivers a tense, uncannily relevant tale about government secrets falling into the wrong hands... Seemingly ripped from recent headlines, Finder's latest is one of his most fiendishly plotted and eerily relevant thrillers."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Finder once again shows his knack for crafting an engaging thriller."
—Publishers Weekly
"The perfect summer read."
—Library Journal
Excerpt
The security line snaked on forever, coiling around and through the rat maze of stanchions and retractable nylon strapping.
Michael Tanner was in a hurry, but LAX wasn’t cooperating. Usually he went TSA pre-check, as well as Global Entry, and every other way you could speed up the security line hassles at the airport; but for some reason his boarding pass had printed out with the words “precheck” ominously missing.
Maybe it was random. Maybe it was just a personnel shortage. They never explained why. His flight was about to board, but he was near the end of a crawling line of harassed travelers trundling rollaboard cases and shouldering backpacks.
“Shoes off, belts off, jackets off, laptops out of your bags,” one of the TSA agents, a large black woman, was chanting from the front. “No liquids. Shoes off, belts off . . .”
Tanner traveled constantly for business, and he was good at it. He glided through the lines, a travel ninja.. But this time? Shoes off! Belt off! He realized he was out of practice. How long had it been since he’d gone through the whole indignity? He yanked his belt off, slid off his loafers, put them in the gray plastic bin and shoved it along the roller conveyor, padding along in stocking feet. He took his laptop out of his shoulder bag, put it in a gray bin of its own, watched it disappear into the maw of the X-ray machine. His jacket, too, he remembered. Pulled it off and shoved it into another gray bin. Tried not to slow down the line.
He glanced at his watch. His flight to Boston was boarding, had to be. If he re-shoed and re-belted and grabbed his stuff quickly, and raced to the departure gate, he’d make it onto the plane before they closed the doors.