When young, powerful, and driven executive Geoff Mann is beaten out of the CEO job at his company, he concocts a plan for revenge that involves kidnapping his opponent's wife The scene is greater Boston; the time, the present; the theme, revenge. Geoff Mann, Wharton MBA and "a terror in the real estate world," suddenly finds himself passed over in his quest to become president and CEO of Jansten Enterprises, a multinational conglomerate. This insult drives him into a frenzy. In a fit of pique and because he's flat broke, he takes up with a ready-for-anything hooker and her low-life pimp, kidnaps his rival's wife, and demands a ransom of $150,000 for her safe return. Eidson (The Guardian, LJ 9/15/96) invests this old pay-up-or-else routine with a couple of fresh if not revolutionary twists, and readers who are not put off by brutality and bloodshed, quick-and-dirty couplings, and characters who should have their mouths soaped will find enough excitement to follow the tale to the last unwinding of the stout main thread of the plot. For larger fiction collections.AA.J. Anderson, Simmons Coll., Boston Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Twisted exercise in melodrama involving dueling yuppies--one good, the other conveniently psychoticmaking mayhem in the boardrooms and boatyards surrounding Boston. Eidsons fourth thriller (The Guardian, 1996, etc.) is his most compact yet. Steve Dern, the good yuppie, works tirelessly for the conglomerate Jantsen Enterprises in a picturesque boat/office that he shares with perfect wife Lisa, who comforts him through his nightmares relating to the death of a frienda death he feels responsible for. Geoff Mann, the bad yuppie who clawed his way to the top of Jantsen's San Francisco operations (the opening scene of Mann challenging a bicycle messenger to a no-brakes downhill bicycle race is as satisfying as any Bond movie teaser), is all nerve and nastiness. A compulsive risk-taker whose cravings for excitement lead him into questionable financial deals, Mann comes to Boston hoping for a promotion that will tip his bank balance into the black. During a tour of the citys tenderloin district, Mann, whos also a karate master, blithely saves a prostitute, Carly, from her sadistic pimp, who vows revenge. When Dern gets the promotion, Mann also vows revenge. He kills his boss, plus a few others who get in his way, and gets Carly to help him kidnap Dern's wife. Meanwhile, sensibility problems stall the story: If Mann's irreverent wickedness is fueled by his fear of being bored, as he tells Carly, then how could he have ever endured the diffident corporate environment in which worker-bee Dern so happily thrives? And why must the hold-your-breath underwater climax require Dern to learn to take risks, if only so that he can atone for the traumatic failure that has given him nightmares all these years? Despite some terrific scenes involving stylish ultraviolence, and a passing appreciation for corporate chicanery and the life on Boston's low seas: a suspenser ultimately stranded by shallow characterizations and soggy plotting. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "...the opening scene of Mann challenging a bicycle messenger to a no-brakes downhill bicycle race is as satisfying as any Bond movie teaser..." -- Kirkus Reviews, May 1998 " Adrenaline confirms what I've been saying for several years, that Bill Eidson is an important voice in crime fiction, with a slant and energy all his own." -- Ed Gorman, of "Mystery Scene" "Eidson, who also wrote the equally compelling The Guardian, has created a wonderfully entertaining thriller populated with genuinely likable and thoroughly despicable characters. You get heros to love, villains to hate, and enough suspense to nibble off the nails of three fingers." -- Booklist, April 15, 1998