RebL Books

If Donald Trump Inspired a Joseph Finder Novel

FinderFakeAt the 2016 Tucson Festival of Books, Joseph Finder discussed the high-profile sources he tapped into while doing research for his novels. A co-panelist asked, “Who?” “Billionaires,” Finder responded. “Trump?” “He’s not a billionaire.” But not all Finder’s characters are billionaires. Many of them face relative financial challenges. So… what if Trump was in a Joseph Finder novel?

New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder delivers a timely thriller exposing how even the most successful among us can be brought down by a carefully crafted list and the incidental dangers of doing a solid for a friend in his new book Guilty Kinds.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is about to be defamed by a parody website for D.C. insiders. Their top content coordinator has aggregated dozens of tabloid articles into a “Top 12 Ways Trump Is the Worst” listicle that could hit The Donald a little too close to home.

The Trump critique is harsh. An office gofer says, “Trump sent me out for gloves. When I came back with medium sized gloves he yelled, ‘I said slightly smaller than large!’ I think the mediums fit just fine–honestly.” Another informant claims Trump spilled beans on Heidi Cruz. Fortunately, Melania had a Shout Stain Stick in her purse and everyone at the GOP party laughed in relief.

The nerve of these tabloid guys! But Trump is not without allies and his publicist is determined to put a positive swing on the listicle. Knowing just where to turn, he heads to Beantown.

Nick Heller is a private spy with better things to do than concern himself with the business of a “not a billionaire”. As an intelligence operative based in Boston, Nick is often hired by lawyers, politicians, foreign governments, and, when he’s too intrigued to say no, desperate publicists who know a guy. A high-powered investigator with a tendency to ignore convention, Nick ventures to New York City to separate fact from fiction and introduce Trump’s publicist to a very smart semiotics guy at NYU who can totally hook people up with crafty wordsmithing.

Nick has just forty-eight hours before he gets really bored with the whole Trump thing. But when the NYU professor is found murdered, the case takes a dangerous turn that has nothing to do with Trump. Nick is on the case.

This is pretty much the storyline for Finder’s new novel, Guilty Minds (Affiliate Link), forthcoming in July. It’s probably a way lot smarter than this Trump idea, so good on Finder for having billionaire sources.

[Author note: The fake book cover design, like the story idea, is borrowed from Guilty Minds. The background image, “Bank Columns of San Fransisco”, is by Wailwulf on DeviantArt.]