But it took Finder a few books to "evolve my own unique voice. We all start out writing under the spell of one or another writer who's captured our imagination, inspired us to write.  Some call that imitation.  Others talk about the Anxiety of Influence (my old Yale professor, Harold Bloom, even wrote a book about it).  And my early novels were very much influenced by the writers I loved, like Robert Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth."

Also early on, Finder admits being "inhibited" by some stern advice given him by an agent, who told Finder "to get rid of all the funny stuff.  Humor undermines suspense, he said.  Of course, he was wrong.  (Ask Harlan Coben, Nelson DeMille, Stephen King, William Goldman . . . the list goes on and on.)  So when I wrote Paranoia, I decided to disregard all the advice I'd been given, break all the rules, and write a thriller that was often (deliberately) funny, told in the first-person voice of a 26-year-old guy who's sort of a scammer -- and didn't have any dead bodies. And it turned out that this was the one that broke through to the New York Times hardcover bestseller list."

Ignoring that questionable advice about humor allows Finder to write "in a voice that's more naturally mine -- more spare, idiosyncratic, with a sort of sociological/cultural observation that lends my stories a certain real-world texture.  I'm a lot more interested in writing about real people rather than superheroes, emphasizing family connections and relationships. Now the world of my novels more closely resembles the real world as I see it, and since they feel real to me, they tend to feel real to my readers too -- I think.  And I've pared down my storytelling in a more cinematic manner -- adopting the compression techniques used in good screenplays and TV writing.  I think this makes the novels more accessible without sacrificing the emotional and character depth that I (and, I believe my readers) want."

Finder has carved out a unique suspense niche in the world of big business.

"It's mine, all mine," he jokes.  "Well, mostly.  It sure doesn't feel like something that's been done to death, like the P.I. novel or the legal thriller, which -- given how many other similar novels are out there -- need some fresh twist to engage our attention.  The other thing, even more important, is that the workplace is where we all spend most of our waking hours, increasingly so.  Which means in many ways the workplace has become our family, our home.  How could it not be interesting -- and full of intrigue?  Michael Crichton showed, in Disclosure, how scary an office can be when people are conspiring against you.  I find so many of the great themes in this setting, including ambition and success, friendship and love -- and greed and deceit and betrayal.  It's all there."

Another mark of Finder's work is the use of First Person narration. He finds it "more intimate than third-person, more immediately involving.  If a writer does it right, he grabs the reader at once.  The reader's along for the ride."

But there are challenges. "Unless you're willing to violate the first-person constraints and interject third-person (as I've done), you're limited in how much you can show of the external threat, of what the villain may be plotting or what trouble your hero is about to get into.  Also, a first-person narrator is a character in him/herself, so it's all about doing the voice right, because the voice supplies the characterization, so it's got to be consistent and interesting."

Finder keeps a disciplined writing routine which he terms "boring," but is, from the results, highly effective.

"I keep an office outside my home, where I do my research and writing, and where my invaluable assistant comes in four days a week to help out in a thousand ways.  I get to work after seeing my daughter off to school (or driving the carpool when it's my turn), and then I write for several hours, take a break, check my e-mail (an evil, evil thing e-mail has become: the great Time Suck), write some more, go work out, grab lunch, and then do business in the afternoon.  Sometimes I make calls for research then, but more often I spend the afternoon on non-writing business.  When a book is really rocketing along, though, I often extend my writing day by getting up insanely early -- 4:00 in the morning, say -- and logging in a few hours on my home computer before going to the office.

"The big news for me -- which will show you how dull my life is, if this is the big news -- is that I've just finished the first of a planned series, with one continuing hero.  My publisher has been asking me for years to write a series character, and so have a lot of my readers, but I kept resisting.  I had no interest in doing a police homicide detective, not while Michael Connelly is doing Harry Bosch.  Nor an FBI agent or a CIA officer.  I wanted to keep writing stories set in the world of Paranoia and Killer Instinct and Power Play, and I didn't know how I could bring a continuing character into such a setting.  Then one day I met someone who does super-secret international investigations for corporations and politicians and governments, extremely discreet and extremely interesting, and I realized I'd found my character.  I named my hero Nick Heller, and I'm already on book two of his adventures, and I'm enjoying it immensely."

For more info, visit Joseph Finder's website at http://www.josephfinder.com/home/index.asp

Contributing editor James Scott Bell is the author of Try Darkness (Hachette/Center Street) and Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure (Writers Digest Books)